• Launches medical loan product

*(L-R) Dr Tayo Bello, Chairman, Lagos State Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency; Aishah Ahmad, Head, Retail Financial Services, Diamond Bank Plc; Uzoma  Dozie, Deputy Managing Director, Dimand Bank Plc; Dr Ngozi Onyia, Non-Executive Director, PharmAcess/Medical Director, Paelon Memorial Clinic, Victoria Island and Jude Aniele, Head, Retail Banking, Diamond Bank Plc at the launch of Diamond MediLoan QualityCare in partnership with SafeCare in Lagos.

Experts say that Nigeria will save billions of naira annually if health facilities have access to medical loan from financial institutions to enable them provide improved healthcare delivery in the country.

In line with this concept, Diamond Bank Plc, a leading retail bank has launched a new product, Diamond MediLoan Quality Care, designed to provide loan facilities for improved healthcare delivery in the country. It is a partnership with SafeCare, a medical advisory and standards organization.

The product, recently launched in Lagos, will afford operators of hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, laboratories, diagnostic centres and other medical establishments the opportunity to access loan facility from the bank to acquire medical equipment, fixed assets and to undertake the renovation and expansion of existing facilities in order to deliver efficient and qualitative service to their clients. The product has four different tiers of financing, ranging from N200, 000 to N56 million.

The goal of MediLoan Quality Care is to add value to health care services in Nigeria, even as the company strives to reduce the country’s annual spend on medical tourism estimated N250 billion.

The bank hopes to significantly reduce this through financing the procurement of modern, computerized state-of-the-art laboratories, providing fixed assets and to undertake the renovation and expansion of existing facilities to enable health facilities deliver efficient and qualitative service to clients.

Speaking at the launch, Mr. Uzoma Dozie, Deputy Managing Director, Diamond Bank Plc, noted that the Bank took keen interest in the health sector due to the strategic importance that good health plays in the overall wellbeing of man before designing scheme.

He said: “For any nation to develop, three things are very critical and important; education, health and food. Citizens, particularly the workforce must be educated, healthy and well-fed. If the workforce lacks any of the three, they can’t be competitive and if they are not, the country can’t develop. That’s the reason we are addressing the problem of financing in the health sector. Through this newly launched product, health practitioners would have access to finance to purchase necessary equipment so they could provide affordable and qualitative services.”

Speaking further, Dozie noted that the country loses millions of dollars annually to foreign countries with better healthcare facilities through medical tourism. He argued that this unwholesome trend would be addressed with the new product.

Medical tourism has been estimated to cost Nigeria about N250 billion annually, a cost that could be saved if more international standard medical care were available locally.

”Health statistics has revealed that Nigeria has estimated 545 maternal deaths per 100,000 births and over 18,000 Nigerians traveled to India in 2013 for medical purposes and spent over N41.6 billion. When hospitals in Nigeria have the necessary medical equipment, patients would need to travel abroad to seek medical treatment, and in the process lose a lot of money. This new facility will help in this regard and make the services affordable. ” he said.

Speaking onbehalf of the partnering organization, SafeCare, Mr. Uzodinma Ken Osisiogu, said his organization would serve as the quality control partner for the programme, adding that SafeCare would ensure both the technical and business competence of applicants before recommending them for the loan.

“The application process would be thorough so that only competent ones would access the loan. The technical aspect is vital as well as the financials. We will look at their record keeping processes also. After securing the loan, we would ensure compliance with terms and insist in delivering the promised quality of service because that is the basis of the loan.