In a bid to reduce the huge amount spent on medical tourism by Nigeria, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) will invest another $100 million in the health sector.
NSIA’s Managing Director, Uche Orji, who disclosed this to journalists after its Healthcare Expansion Programme agreement signing ceremony with five tertiary health institutions, and three state governments Thursday in Abuja.
The agreement was for the expansion of phase one of its Diagnostics and Oncology Expansion Programme across Nigeria.
The Authority through its NSIA Healthcare Development and Investment Company (NHDIC) entered into eight collocation agreements in total.
The state governments are Enugu, Kaduna and Kwara states while the selected, medical centres include Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital Bauchi, Usman Dan Fodio University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto, Federal Medical Centre Asaba, Delta, University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, Akwa Ibom and University College Hospital Board of Management.Oyo state.
According to Orji, with the return on investment by the Authority from previous investments in the sector, it was not difficult to further invest in the sector.
“They are all profitable the once we are running, so, once you make the investment, provide the working capital it helps you jump start. It starts first of all as a business so they provide their own revenue, their own P&L,” he said.
The NSIA helmsman said that the NSIA has been able to deliver quality health care at affordable price. He added
that with the level of patronage that is being witnessed, expanding the projects would further made healthcare available to more Nigerians.
He said: “Like you all know the initial project is the cancer treatment program in Lagos which has have more than 200,000 patient encounters and continuing we are now actually begin to expand that Lagos centre because we are not able to keep up with the demand and also the Lagos centre is currently operating on a mantra of high quality reasonable price to that extent from what we have seen, we are able to deliver the cost of these treatment at about 20% of what you pay elsewhere and we’ve been able to run it in a sustainable manner, so that has given us the big confidence to now expand into other states.”
