Niger Speaker calls for regulatory mechanism to oversee operations of private clinics

Niger State House of Assembly Speaker, Hon Abdulmalik Mohammad Sarkin-Daji, has called on stakeholders in the health sector to develop a regulatory mechanism to oversee the operations of private clinics in the state to ensure quality healthcare and accountability.

Sarkin-Daji made this known at a public hearing organized by the House Standing Committee on Health and Nutrition to harmonize a bill providing for the establishment of an agency for the registration and regulation of private health facilities, as well as a bill for a law to regulate the minimum standards for healthcare facilities in the state, held in Minna.

The Speaker lamented that, to date, there is no law regulating the administrative and technical operations of private clinics in the state, which is deeply troubling.

Earlier, the Chairman of the House Committee on Health and Nutrition and member representing Paikoro Constituency, Pharm. Umar Nasir, stressed the importance of the bill.

According to him, “If passed into law and assented to, it would address issues of quackery in the medical profession, which has increased the morbidity and mortality rate in society.”

Also, the state Commissioner for Secondary and Tertiary Health, Bello Tukur, decried the incessant setting up of healthcare facilities and institutions with poor quality delivery.

The two bills have scaled through the second reading on the floor of the House and are currently undergoing stakeholder input for harmonization to prevent duplication.