The House of Representatives says it is seeking ways to put an end to the death of at least 100,000 children from Sickle Cell in Nigeria every year, making the country number one sickle cell endemic country in Africa.
Available statistics showed that Nigeria is the country with the highest burden of sickle cell disorder in the world as over 40 million Nigerians are carriers of the sickle cell gene and over 150,000 babies are born with it every year.
These were some of the resolutions of the House Committee on Health Institutions at the public hearing on a Bill for an Act to Establish the National Agency for Sickle Cell Disease and other Heritage Blood Disaster for the Treatment, Prevention Control and Management of the Disease in Nigeria.
Bamidele Salami from Osun State who sponsored the bill said the Bill seeks to improve the lives of people suffering from Sickle cell disease, recognize the disease as a serious and debilitating illness, and allocate new resources to monitoring, researching and treating it.
According to him, the Bill particularly seeks to “formulate and implement policies, guidelines and strategies on sickle cell disease and other heritable blood disorders; facilitate the engagement of all tiers of government and all sectors on issues of sickle cell disease and other heritable blood disorders prevention, care and support.
Advocate for the mainstreaming of sickle cell disease and other heritable blood disorders interventions into all sectors of the country; promote, improve and support research and learning in sickle cell disease and other heritable blood disorders”.
Interventions in the health sector
Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila declared the public hearing on the Bill and that on an Act to Establish the Federal Medical Centre Hong in Adamawa, open and said both proposed legislations are in line with the 9th House legislative agenda to make interventions in the health sector.
“We set out a Legislative Agenda that outlined the scope of our governing ambitions…In that document, we made commitments to improve access to healthcare services for our entire nation’s people, increase funding for healthcare research, improve the mechanisms for training and providing for our healthcare professionals amongst other things”, he said.
Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire said the Department of Public Health within the Ministry of Health which currently deals with non-communicable diseases will be strengthened to continue with the work which falls within its mandate.
The Minister who was represented by Director Hospital Services Dr. Adedimpe Adebiyi said the need to improve access to quality healthcare services cannot be overemphasised and commended the efforts of the lawmakers towards realization of the goal.
On the Federal Medical Centre Hong, Adamawa State, the Minister said: “The policy for establishing Federal Medical Centre is for it to be established in States where there are no Federal Teaching Hospitals. Currently, the above policy is accomplished and it is inadvisable for the Federal Government to engage in proliferation of tertiary health institutions”.
Sponsor of the Bill for the establishment of the Federal Medical Centre, Mr. Yusuf Yakub from Adamawa State, said indigenes of the area had in 2019 mobilised health-care infrastructure and equipment from government and the private sector to upgrade an existing health facility which can accommodate the proposed Federal Medical Centre.
Nneka Ukachukwu
