If the bill before the Senate is anything to go by, residents and indigenes of Abuja might have lost their bid to have a seat on the new management board of the National Hospital.
The bill, which seeks to amend the National Hospital Establishment Act, has excluded citizens, residents and natives of the FCT from possible membership of the hospital's board.
The bill was originally sponsored by Anthony Manzo and two others, and was first read on the floor of the Senate on January 2008, after which it was referred to the committee on health for further consideration.
The report was presented to the Senate, last Tuesday, by Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, chairman of the health committee, and its recommendations were debated on the floor.
Most of the recommendations of the committee were either unanimously discarded or accepted, but the recommendation that a native of the FCT be part of the board stirred arguments amongst the senators.
The health committee argued that it is appropriate, because a seat is always reserved for natives of the host community, in teaching hospitals. But most of the senators argued that since Abuja is the federal capital and officially has no natives, the provision was not necessary.
They argued that, rather, the board should be made up of technocrats.
The board members, as approved by the senate, include: The Chairman, The Chief Medical Director of the Hospital; a representative of the presidency; a representative of the ministry of health; The Nigeria Medical Association; Society of Gynaecologists of Nigeria; Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria; Paediatric Association of Nigeria and the National Association of Nurses and Midwives.
"Before now, the National Hospital has been running on a special board and not a full hospital management board," said Mrs. Obasanjo-Bello.
The National Hospital Abuja was established by the defunct Family Support Trust Fund and commissioned on May 22, 1999 by the former Head of State, Abdusalami Abubakar. It started admitting patients on October 11, 1999.