Olushola Omogbehin
Health workers under the Joint Health Sector Unions and the Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations have staged a protest in Abuja over a proposed health sector reform bill before the National Assembly.
In an official communication on Thursday morning, the protester said the aim of the protest is to draw healthcare professionals from across the country to the National Assembly Complex but participants already converged in the morning at the Unity Fountain in Maitama.
They expressed opposition to the legislation, saying that it could alter the regulatory structure of the country’s health sector.
As the bill seeks to place all medical professions under the control of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, they believed that such a move would undermine existing professional bodies and create an imbalance within the sector.
They maintained that each existing professional body already has its own regulatory council and warned that the proposed law could relegate other healthcare professionals to a subordinate status.
According to them, the bill is designed to make non-physician health workers “second-class” to medical doctors.
The unions had earlier announced plans to stage a national protest in Abuja over the proposed Health Sector Executive Bills 2026, currently before the National Assembly.
