The establishment of Orthopaedic hospitals in Edo State, Plateau State and Taraba State was on Thursday approved by Nigeria’s House of Representatives.
The established Bills read for the third time, and approved by the House, as presented by the Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase, are: “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Orthopaedic Hospitals Management Board Act, Cap. O10, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 to provide for Establishment of Orthopaedic Hospital, Jos, Plateau State; and for Related Matters (HB. 886).
“A Bill for an Act to amend the Orthopaedic Hospitals Management Board Act, to Provide for the Establishment of the Orthopaedic Hospital, Benin, Edo State and Jalingo, Taraba State, and for related matters”.
Wase, sponsor of the Bills in his lead debate, argued that “currently, Mr Speaker, Hon. Colleagues, Nigeria with an ovulation of over200 a million persons, has only three Orthopaedic hospitals as provided for by the Orthopaedic Hospitals Management Board Act.
“This, Mr Speaker, Hon. Colleagues, you will agree with me, is grossly inadequate. The goal of every government is to ensure that its citizens enjoy optimal health of mind and body. This, however, cannot be actualized with the current number of Orthopaedic hospitals in Nigeria”.
Advancing his argument for the establishment of the medical centres in those states, he explained that in order to ease the burden on the three extant Orthopaedic Hospitals and to cater for the needs of the South-South zone and Northeast Zone which do not have a single Orthopaedic Centre, establishing these additional two Orthopaedic Hospitals, will ensure fair distribution of infrastructure amongst the six Geopolitical zones in the spirit of the Constitutional provisions on Federal Character contained in section 14(3).
