In a development that sure will pass for the greatest thing to happen in the health sector in the year 2014 and one of the best presidential assents under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan given to any legislation, the National Health Bill has finally been passed into law. 
First drafted by a group of Change Agents in 2003/4 to generate development in the health sector, the Bill has had a chequered history as a result of many factors chief of which are executive delay in 2005 and legislative setbacks in 2007. But many health analysts have argued that the passage of the Bill into law will harbinger many advantages to the health sector. For instance, the Bill provides for the creation of a national primary health fund, expansion of the insurance scheme and many others.
In a news report by Business Day news, Benjamin Anyene, chairman of the Health Reform Foundation of Nigeria (HEFRON) Board of Trustees opined that the implementation of the Bill will save the lives of three million children and women over a five-year period owing to the Bill’s essential features of increasing funding to the healthcare sector, addressing inequities amongst many others.
However, the HFN intends to keep investing efforts into its policy-advocacy drive seeing that the passage of the Health Bill into law is only the first step in a health sector dying for change, and making sure that the second step – implementation - is achieved. This is to ensure that the Law doesn’t end up as theCabotage Act and Maritime Legislation of 2003 which has been operational for the past 10 years but has been unable to effect ground-breaking changes in the nation’s shipping industry.
To download the Bill, click here.
