African Development Bank boosts Lagos healthcare sector with $20 million loan

Kayode Ogunwale

 

Lagos State, Nigeria’s largest healthcare market, lacks an adequate supply of quality secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities with only about 700 to 1,000 quality beds for a population of over 21 million people.
It is in response to this latent situation, that the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank has approved a Senior Loan in Naira (equivalent to $20 million) to Santa Clara Medical Limited, to finance the development of a hospital and referral clinics in Lagos. By supporting investment in healthcare infrastructure, the Bank will help the Nigerian government develop human capital through improved service delivery in the healthcare system.
“This situation currently forces over 30,000 Nigerians to spend over $1 billion on medical tourism for specialty treatments overseas. Completing this project would allow the country’s healthcare sector to benefit from some of these resources” said Dr Abdu Mukhtar, AfDB’s Director of Industrialization and Trade Development. He also added: “This is an important development. In spite of recent improvements, Nigeria’s health infrastructure remains rudimentary and insufficient to cater to the country’s growing population”.
The hospital and referral clinics will be situated in different locations in Lagos and will upon completion in 2020, provide a full spectrum of high quality general and specialist healthcare services at competitive prices. It is expected to have positive economic and social benefits for the city of Lagos and will create around 250 temporary jobs during the construction period and 600 jobs over its operation phase. More importantly, it will significantly improve private healthcare services by offering quality general medical services in addition to specialty services such as orthopedic, nephrology, urology, cardiology and neuro surgery that are largely unavailable in the country.
The Santa Clara Medical facility is being promoted by AXA Mansard, a member of the AXA Group, Africa Capital Alliance, IFC and Healthshare Health Solutions, the hospital management company of the project.
The facility will be a model case with strong demonstration effect for the development of the health infrastructure and services in Nigeria. The investment is consistent with the Bank’s Private Sector Development Strategy to improve Africa’s investment and business climate, especially in the healthcare sector that is currently under-served by the private sector and increase access to social and economic infrastructure on the continent. The investment is also a reflection of the Bank’s commitment to improving the quality of life of the African people one of the five priority focus areas of the Bank.