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• FG mandates free fistula surgery at teaching hospitals
A pro-democracy and non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), wants the National Assembly to pass a bill that would ban medical tourism, even as it said the broadcast made by President Muhammadu Buhari was not far-reaching and not re-assuring.
The Rights group also said Nigeria’s unity is not cast in iron and is open to continuous negotiations, restructuring and reworking.
The group reminded President Buhari that even the United Kingdom that gave us the independence is open to the possible breakup through the democratic referendum by one of the component parts known as Scotland. “in life one basic fact that is permanent is change.”
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In a statement by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zaniab Yusuf, HURIWA said the presidential speech was silent on the amount of public fund that has gone into treating the president. HURIWA said : “We expected Mr. President to apologise for breaching his solemn electoral pledge to end medical tourism and to send an executive bill to the National Assembly to ban all sorts of publicly funded medical tourism.
In a related development, the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Health, has dispatched immediate directive to all teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres in the country, to wave off payment of surgery and laboratory fees for all fistula patients who present for treatment at the tertiary hospitals.
The National Coordinator of Fistula Project, Federal Ministry of Health, Mrs. Ogunmayi Peters, made this known yesterday, at the General Hospital Ogoja.Cross River State.
