ENUGU — The Joint committee on health, education and judiciary has successfully conducted a one-day public hearing on a bill for a law to make provision for the establishment of faith-based organization schools of nursing, midwifery and medical laboratory technicians in Enugu state and other matters connected therewith.
The bills which had scaled through first and second reading may most likely be restructured to accommodate salient submissions from stakeholders during the public hearing.
The Speaker, Enugu State House of Assembly (ESHA), Rt Hon. Edward Ubosi ably represented by his deputy, Hon. Uchenna Ugwu after declaring the event open said, “Public hearing is a statutory obligation the legislative have towards the people before passing any bill into law.”
He further stated that contributions from the participants would guide the Assembly in deciding to proceed with the bill or not.
The Chairman Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, Enugu State, Comrade Ezekiel Omeh explained the need for the bills to be restructured so as to align with the structures as stipulated by the Nursing and Midwifery regulations. He reasons that the current structure as contained in the bill would become obsolete by 2023, hence the need to adopt the new structure as laid down by the regulatory body.
Chief Polly Eze, one of the town union chairmen present strongly frowned at faith-based schools in health sector. According to him, given the diverse beliefs of some religion, they most likely would pass on some extreme beliefs like ‘No blood transfusion’ to the students to the detriment of citizens who they would attend to after graduation. He called on the committee to properly investigate this bill before passage because of the high proliferation of churches that may catch in on the law to establish schools to propagate their beliefs.
The Chairman of the joint committee Hon Sam Ngene assured all the stakeholders that their submissions will be investigated.
Recall that the bill for a law to make provision for the establishment of Faith-based organization schools of Nursing (HB.1) 2019, Midwifery (HB. 2) 2019 and Medical Laboratory Technicians (HB.3) 2019 in Enugu State and other matters connected thereto, seek to establish faith-based organization school of Nursing, school of midwifery and school of medical laboratory in Enugu State that would provide courses in health related programs, train and retrain existing and intending nurses, midwives and medical laboratory technicians.
