On Wednesday, the House of Representatives considered and approved, clause by clause, the Bill for an Act to Amend the Federal Medical Centres Act, 2022 and Establish the Federal Medical Centre, Ohafia, Abia State, and for Related Matters (HB.257), sponsored by the Member representing Arochukwu/Ohafia Federal Constituency, Hon. Ibe Okwara Osonwa.
The motion to consider the report of the Committee on Health Institutions, moved by its Chairman, Hon. (Dr.) Patrick Umoh, was carried. The House then resolved into the Committee of the Whole, where all the clauses of the bill, its schedule, explanatory memorandum and long title were considered and approved.
Hon. Okwara Osonwa has been clear about his plan for the centre. He is not asking the Federal Government to equip it. He is asking for the bill to be passed and for the Federal Government to pay its staff. The equipment, he has said, he will secure through donations.
That plan rests on a record. Since 2018, years before he held office, Hon. Okwara Osonwa has brought international healthcare partners into the constituency to deliver free medical care. Those partnerships continue: this year’s free medical and surgical outreach attended to over 9,000 cases and carried out 38 free surgeries across Arochukwu and Ohafia.
First read in July 2023, in his first weeks in the House, the bill has since passed Second Reading, gone through a public hearing, been reported on by the Committee on Health Institutions, and has now been approved by the whole House. It is a major step towards bringing a Federal Medical Centre, with specialist care and the jobs that come with it, to Ohafia and its neighbouring communities.
Ibe Means Business.
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