What do you think?
Friday, 10 June 2011
Nigerian banks throwing money at medical practices
We are not quite sure whether we should be celebrating a new trend we have noticed emerging in Nigeria or not. In many Nigerian newspapers there are financial products targeted at medical institutions. At the typical interest rates of over 20% per annum for borrowing in Nigeria , we wonder how the operations of a typical medical institution will lend itself to these products. Also with the reputation of our banking sector, it is impossible to say if this innovation in our banking sector is a good thing for our health sector or the beginning of the monster that has consumed many others.
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3 comments:
I think our financial organisations have insights drawn from the performance of healthcare organisations from other economies (especially western) and how these can be replicated in Nigeria. Other projections like that from IFC (international Finance Corporation) have yielded more investors' and funders' confidence in healthcare businesses in Nigeria.
One of the loan schemes is part funded by USAID and they have also gone ahead to commence training of consultants who can support the healthcare ventures in sector-specific issues and how to manage them.
I, as an observer of the system, may not vouch for any of the products, but I believe they are worth accepting with stiffer regulation and monitoring in place.
My only challenge is the expectations of these investors from a business sector that is not MARKETING ORIENTED (not profit oriented, not competition based, not allowed to promote - these ingredients of innovation are absent).
Until we change the way healthcare is financed (i.e from predominantly from out of pocket to prepaid), I believe these loans will have a high default rate except the banks reserve them for the very exclusive clinics/hospitals that service the high socio-economic group.
Most of our medical practices (private and public)have difficulty collecting their fee for service and therefore find it difficult to plan financially. This then makes it difficult to access or plan how to pay back a loan.
If access to these loans are restricted to exclusive hospitals, then it will obviously not solve the fundamental problem with our health care system that has given rise to the dismal indices we frequently read about.
If our government plans and implements a sustainable way for individuals to pay for healthcare services, access to care for the majority will improve, the people that provided the services can plan financially and private investors will provide funds to invest in the health sector.
The problem with our health care system is that we focus too much on tertiary and secondary level care to the detriment of primary health care and i don't mean immunization clinics,provision of clean water etc.I mean real family physician/private sector lead involvement in prevention/early detection and effective treatment of Hypertension,diabetes,minor injuries,cancers,women and child care strategies.Until physicians take on this challenge with help from private sector funds we are not going to get anywhere in terms of health care delivery.This funding i beleive is an opportunity for those involved in health care to restrategise in terms of pulling together and make primary care delivery more cost effective.
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