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The Federal Government said it would soon come up with legislation that would regulate the healthcare sector to eliminate quacks and ensure improved service delivery.
Minister of State for Health, Dr Tunji Alausa, stated this on Friday when he paid a courtesy call on the governor of Ogun State, Prince Dapo Abiodun at the Presidential Lodge, Abeokuta.
Alausa decried the unwholesome practice where untrained people are allowed to operate in the health sector.
He also lamented the prevalence of quacks from where heinous act, such as organ harvesting takes place.
The minister said: “We will be pushing for a new regulation to regulate the healthcare sector as more than 60 per cent of the nation’s healthcare is in the hands of the private sector without adequate supervision.
“You see hospitals, laboratories, and diagnostic centres being run without anybody checking on what they are doing and these are some of the places where illegal practices like organ harvesting are taking place.
“What we are going to do at the federal level, is to set up a Health Facility Regulatory Commission that will start regulating the standard of health care across the country and we expect the states to set up their own regulatory bodies as well.”
Alausa said the federal government is in the process of starting a programme that would increase the production of healthcare providers, starting with the admission of 10,000 medical students every year, while admission for nurses would increase from 28,000 to 68,000, annually.
Responding, Governor Abiodun, said his administration would not hesitate to replicate any federal government action aimed at eliminating quackery in the health sector.
“We are one of the two states that have put in place a board for alternative medicine because we realized that a lot of our people, especially pregnant women are patronizing traditional birth attendance. We regulate and certify them to ensure we have some form of oversight in their activities,” Abiodun explained.
He expressed delight that the federal government was looking into the direction of increasing the number of intake in the nation’s medical institutions to address the shortfall of medical personnel in government health facilities, assuring that the state would follow suit to produce more trained practitioners for the sector.
