EKO NEWS

REPORT: How Hon. Raji’s Healthcare Bill Has Engendered Swift Response To Emergency Accidents

Published

4 years ago

Dec 3, 2020.

In Nigeria, healthcare delivery has remained a perennial problem which has undoubtedly plagued several administrations, with several loopholes accounting for the systemic rot which has left the Nigerian people with more questions than answers in this regard.

Beyond the sheer lack of requisite facility to tackle the numerous demands in healthcare delivery, yet another bane which has plagued the system has come in the area of bottlenecks which prevents swift response to medical emergencies; a swift response which could very well be the difference between life or death.

One such bottleneck which has constituted a cog in the wheel of efficient healthcare delivery has been a lack of legislation that allows our private and public health facilities to answer swiftly to emergency situations involving gunshot wounds and other related accidents.

Prior to this time, the available legislation, ‘The compulsory treatment and care for victims of gunshots Act, 2017’ had been narrowly cast to only cater for the emergency needs of gunshot victims, leaving the victims of other related attacks like stab injuries to the mercy of medical practitioners who have shown demonstrated proclivity towards taking undue advantage of the shallow nature of this legislation.

But then again, one of the fundamental reasons of having parliamentary representation is for elected lawmakers to be abreast with certain special needs of the constituency and consequently push for legislative measures that would ameliorate the lives of the people by addressing these special needs.

This is where the unfortunate and tragic murder of Moradeun Balogun becomes a factor to be reckoned with. Following the death of 28-year-old Moradeun who was mugged on her way back from work, stabbed and left for dead by her assailants, it became necessary to revisit available legislation on the emergency response to victims of stab injuries since it had been abundantly established that Miss Balogun’s ultimate demise was primarily due to gross dereliction of duty by hospital personnel who demanded a police report before they could move swiftly to address a life or death situation.

As a proactive parliamentarian who recognises the need for the system to be more dynamic, Hon. Wale Raji, Member representing Epe Federal Constituency moved to sponsor a bill to expand the scope the compulsory treatment for victims of gunshot injuries Act, 2017 thereby allowing hospitals, (both public and private) to attend to victims of other armed attacks other than gunshot injuries without a police report and ultimately bring the law in conformity with the actual intendment of the Act.

The ultimate goal is a comprehensive reform in the healthcare delivery system which would ensure that victims of stab injuries or other related attacks receive the prompt attention that they deserve to prevent a repeat of what happened to young Moradeun Balogun, a woman in her prime lost to the red tape vagaries of Nigeria’s healthcare delivery system.

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