“Another thing we noted was a great way we were losing a lot of our good talents,” she said, adding that “The best of talents in the health sector were going out of the continent, working in places such as India, Asia, the Middle East, America, and that often was an issue.”
“Another thing we noted was a great way we were losing a lot of our good talents,” she said. “The best of talents in the health sector were going out of the continent, working in places such as India, Asia, the Middle East, America, and that often was an issue.”
Doherty said Afreximbank responded to the trend by launching its Health and Medical Tourism Programme in 2012, recognising early the link between healthcare and economic development.
She cited the Africa Medical Center of Excellence in Abuja as a flagship intervention under the programme. “Afreximbank was innovative. I call us the innovative financier, the innovative investors. We recognised this part since 2012, and we set about doing something about it,” she said.
The AMCE is a 170-bed facility equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology, including an 18 MeV cyclotron, a three-Tesla MRI, and a 20-bed intensive care unit. The Bank has committed over $450m to the project.
“Afreximbank had to go where no one has gone before; Afreximbank’s leaders adhered to the dreamers,” she said. “The AMCE aims to provide healthcare services comparable to global standards, not just African standards. I’m talking about global standards. I’m talking about Africans coming up with solutions to challenges.”
She stressed the need for Nigeria and other African countries to rebuild trust in domestic healthcare systems and called for policies that ensure quality care is accessible locally to reverse the tide of medical tourism.
Source: The Punch online
