By Adadareporters
The bill for an Act to establish Federal Medical Centre, Obukpa-Nsukka, Enugu State, and for Other Related Matters sponsored by Hon Chidi Mark Obetta has passed the second reading on the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday 8th February, 2024.
Obetta, representing Nsukka/Igboeze South Federal Constituency, moved the motion for the bill to be taken the second time in the House at plenary which was granted by the speaker. It was seconded by Hon Kelechi Nwogu, representing Etche/ Omuma Federal Constituency, Rivers State.
Recall that the proposed bill was first moved at the floor of the House of Representatives on the 27th July, 2023 by Obetta before it was rescheduled for the second reading.
Hon Obetta, while leading the debate on the general principles of the bill, said the establishment of FMC Obukpa, if passed into law and assented to by Mr President, would provide accessible, quality and affordable tertiary healthcare services to the people of Nsukka zone and its border states.
According to him, Nsukka being a buffer zone between the north and the southeast is a major attraction to other ethnic nationalities because of easy availability of water bodies and all year-round green vegetation for farming and related agricultural activities. The dense population of the area put an enormous pressure on the inadequate primary and secondary health institutions with resultant medical emergency fatalities.l, he noted.
The federal lawmaker stressed that the fact that the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku- Ozalla, is located at the opposite end and on the way out of Enugu towards Abia/Imo states and to the South-South region, compounds the health needs of people in the Enugu North Senatorial Zone in Enugu State.
He said the implications were disastrous because before ‘you transport patients on referrals to either UNTH Ituku-Ozalla or to Enugu State University Teaching Hospital in Enugu metropolis, most of such patients are pronounced dead on arrival’.
Obetta posits that the scenario which has become a constant occurrence in the lives of the sick and vulnerable should not be the bane of ‘our citizens in a 21st Century Nigeria’, hence the sponsorship of this bill for the establishment of a Federal Medical Centre in Obukpa.
He said if the bill is passed into law and favourably assented to, the FMC would not be starting from the scratch as Obukpa was originally the site for the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital but for no justifiable reasons was relocated to Ituku-Ozalla, far away from the university community.
Most of the hospital blocks built for the take-off of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital in Obukpa are still there and being skeletally used as a health center by UNTH Ituku-Ozalla, it was gathered.
He.urged Mr Speaker and his Honorable colleagues not ‘to only support the expeditious passage of this bill, but also to ensure that Mr. President assented to
The speaker, Rt Hon Tajudeen Abbas, after the bill scaled the second reading, subsequently referred it to the Committee on Health Institutions for further legislative actions.
