Reps pledge support to provide specialised healthcare for Nigerians

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, on Thursday stressed the need for effective oversight of specialised healthcare institutions with a view to ensure that Nigerians have access to high-quality, specialised healthcare services that cater to their diverse medical needs.

Abbas said this at a public hearing by the House Committee on Speciality Healthcare on a Bill for an Act to amend the Orthopaedic Hospitals Management Board to Provide for the establishment of the Orthopaedic Hospital Billiri, Gombe State.

The Speaker who noted that one of the core responsibilities of Parliament is to make laws in a way that benefits the public and that the hearing is an essential part of that process, explained that the Bill seeks to address the orthopaedic healthcare gap in the region by creating a facility that can offer specialised care to those in need.

While expressing the House commitment to strengthening healthcare delivery in Nigeria, with a focus on specialised institutions, Speaker Abbas said the Orthopaedic Hospital Billiri Bill presents several key merits in terms of addressing healthcare needs in Gombe State and, more broadly, Nigeria’s healthcare system.

This, according to him, will enhance access to critical orthopaedic care, particularly in a region that needs sufficient specialised health services in order to remain resilient.

He said Orthopaedic issues are prevalent across Nigeria, particularly due to road accidents and other trauma-related injuries, making the establishment of such a facility a necessary step in addressing an underserved aspect of healthcare.

He said the bill’s provision to affiliate the new hospital with the Federal Teaching Hospital in Gombe offers a synergistic benefit by creating an educational partnership that can improve healthcare outcomes through training, research, and increased expertise in orthopaedics.

In his address, Chairman, House Committee on Healthcare Specialty Healthcare, Hon. Alex Egbona, said the Bill seeks to provide for the establishment of the Orthopaedic Hospital Billiri, Gombe State under the control of the Orthopaedic Hospitals Management Board and affiliated to the Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe, to provide specialised orthopaedic treatment and medical services.

Represented by the Deputy Chairman, Lawal Shetima Ali, he said the Principal Act was first amended during the 9th National Assembly to establish Orthopaedic Hospitals in Jos, Plataeu State, Benin City, Edo State and Jalingo, Taraba State.

In his remarks, Gombe State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Habu Dahiru said that the state has only one general tertiary institution.

According to him, the population has outgrown the facility due to high influx of people from the neighbouring states as a result of insurgency in the North East sub-region.

“Billiri the headquarters of Billiri LGA, the proposed location of the orthopaedic hospital is strategically located on the highway.

“It will provide easy access for patients in need of special care and referrals from primary and secondary facilities in the state and the neighbouring Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Taraba states.

“At the moment our indicators are poor and far from the WHO recommendations in the state and the zone; therefore we need specialty orthopaedic hospitals to improve our indicators, access training, research and expert management to reverse the trend,” he said.

Dr. Dahiru said that if the orthopaedic hospital is approved in Billiri, it will provide millions of people with rapid access to highest quality care and lifelong learning in health.

He said that it will further provide the most up to date competences/expertise and tools to keep the communities healthy.

On his part, Brigadier General Nuhu Adeh (Rtd) recalled that three orthopedic hospitals were established across the three regions in the country.

He explained that one was located in Kano state to serve the North, another in Lagos state to serve the South West and one in Enugu state to serve the South East/South-South regions.

Adeh, an Orthopaedic surgeon from Gombe, said that with the creation of six geo-political zones, the Federal Ministry of Health, established one for each geopolitical zone.

According to him, it has been approved for the North central and the South South zones to have one in Plateau and Edo.

“The only region that has not gotten is the North East. It is therefore glanding for the House of Representative to establish one in the North East and situate it in Billiri which is central in distance from Bauchi, from Yobe, from Borno, from Adamawa and from Taraba states.

“Therefore, if an Orthopaedic centre is established in Billiri it will take care of complicated Orthopedic and Trauma patients since most of the teaching hospital will take care of the minors and intermediate accidents and emergencies,” he said.

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