The Nigerian Medical Association, Zamfara chapter, says it is preparing a Bill on Maternal Health Accountability, for submission to the State House of Assembly.
Vice Chairman of the association, Dr. Mannir Bature, disclosed this to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gusau, yesterday.
Bature said the bill, likely to be known as “Maternal Health Accountability Bill”, would among other things, ensure that the rights of women were adequately recognised and protected.
“If you look at the alarming indices of causes of maternal mortality in the state, you will see that most of them are avoidable if the right things were done.
“Our governments have not been very serious over healthcare service delivery issues in the past; the declaration of the present Governor of the state, Bello Matawalle, that he will provide free medical care to women and children in the state is encouraging.
“As practitioners and unionists in the health care sector therefore, we will monitor the implementation of the executive order to see if the State Government will implement it and if there are no bottlenecks.”
He said if the bill was realised, the union would assist the state government in ensuring that all its measures on healthcare service delivery were closely supervised and implemented.
“We will want the support of all and sundry,particularly women groups, in the processing of the bill especially when it comes to public hearing so that at the end we will have a perfect copy and a law that will cover all the necessary aspects of the sector,” he said.
He appealed to the state government to meet the Abuja declaration on health by allocating 15 per cent of its annual budget to the health sector as well as making timely release of the required funds to the sector.