Sonnie Ekwowusi, a Legal Practitioner in Lagos, has an OpEd in TheGuardian (Lagos) that begins:
It is no longer news that President Goodluck Jonathan has signed the National Health Bill 2014 (NHB 2014) into law. It is worthwhile to briefly recall that long before the said signing of the NHB 2014 Bill into law, the bill had been mired in no small controversy. While some stakeholders faulted the NHB 2014 for not being substantially different from the National Health 2008 and National Health Bill 2012 which both late President Umaru Yar’Adua and even President Jonathan at that time respectively refused to sign because they were adjudged to be perverse, discriminatory, inchoate and self-serving, others faulted the NHB 2014 for violating certain provisions of the 1999 Constitution, African Charter on Human & Peoples Rights (Ratification Enforcement) Act, cap 10 and other international human rights instruments.
Specifically, section 48(1) (b) of the NHB 2014 states that a person shall remove the tissue, blood or blood product from another living person without his informed consent for medical investigations and treatment in emergency cases. Strangely enough, the interpretations of the phrases “medical investigations” and “treatment in emergency cases” are not provided.
Read the full OpEd on TheGuardian.