News Investigators/ The Senate has passed for second reading, a bill for an act to amend the University Teaching Hospitals and Reconstitution of Boards Act 2005.
This followed presentation of the general principles of the bill at plenary on Tuesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the bill was sponsored by Sen. Abba Moro (PDP-Benue).
Moro, in his lead debate, said the sole purpose of the bill was to amend the University Teaching Hospitals, Reconstitution of Boards Acts to include the Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo Benue Teaching Hospitals, which was already in existence and operational.
He said the federal university of health sciences Otukpo teaching hospital, was a premier institution dedicated to training healthcare professionals in Benue and Nigeria by extension.
According to him, the university’s mission is to produce high skilled and competent clinical practitioners, who could serve the healthcare needs of the nation.
He said the National Health Act 2014, section 10, established a framework for teaching hospitals in Nigeria.
According to him, section 10 stipulates that a teaching hospital shall be established by an act of the National Assembly.
“This implies that without an act of the national assembly, a teaching hospital does not have the legal backing, that is the reason for the bill, ” Moro said.
He urged the lawmakers to support the bill for a second reading.
Sen. Victor Umeh (LP -Anambra )rising in support of the bill, said it was clear that any university that offered medicine should have a teaching hospital because the teaching hospital supported the academics in the medical college .
Umeh said it is in the teaching hospital that the students are groomed through clinical studies.
He said any university that has a medical college without a teaching hospital is still not fit to function as a medical college, saying that teaching hospitals provided the training to be qualified for medical practice as a medical doctor in Nigeria.
Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, after the bill passed second reading , refered it to the Committee on Health, Secondary and Tertiary Institution for further legislative inputs and to return to plenary in four weeks.
Akpabio commended the sponsor of the bill and lawmakers for their contributions, saying that paragraph three of the sponsors’ submission was very germane.
He said the sole purpose of the bill was to amend the university teaching hospitals act, reconstitution of the boards to include the federal university of health sciences teaching hospital, Otukpo, which was already in existence and operational.
This, he said, was to ensure legality of the institution.
NAN