The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has outlined an ambitious plan to revolutionise healthcare service delivery in Africa with the establishment of ultramodern medical facilities across the continent.

It said the aim is to make a positive impact on Africa’s healthcare landscape, thus bringing an end to the loss of over $1–$2 billion annually due to outbound medical tourism.

In an interview with journalists in Abuja, the bank’s Managing Director, Export Development, Oluranti Doherty, said their immediate goal was to establish state-of-the-art medical facilities across the various regions of Africa beginning with the African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE) in Abuja.

Doherty said the target of Afrexim Bank is that by the time similar healthcare facilities are set up in other regions of Africa, they will be able to complement and strengthen each other.

Africa is currently losing over $1–$2 billion annually due to outbound medical tourism, according to the World Bank and African Union.

Doherty said that the first of the four-pronged ultramodern medical centres envisioned by the bank is the AMCE, which was inaugurated last Thursday in Abuja by President Bola Tinubu.

According to her, AMCE was designed to address issues around the African healthcare landscape and to reverse the negative impact of outbound medical tourism by providing advanced, specialist healthcare services locally

Giving more details on the construction of the AMCE in Abuja, Doherty said the first phase of the project gulped $300 million

She explained that Afrexim Bank is deploying additional $150 million towards the expansion of the AMCE Abuja to include a research institute, office apartments for medical practitioners in the country and across Africa, who want to come and make use of the hospital facility.

“The African Medical Centre of Excellence Abuja is the first and headquarters from where others in Central Africa, South Africa, North Africa are expected to spring up. At the moment, we are finalising the feasibility study on the expansion project in conjunction with Kings College, University Hospital London.

“It involves a hotel component for patients who want to have their family members accompany them and be close to them during treatment to offer love needed for the recuperate. It also involves residency for the medical staff.

“There is also a plan to develop a medical and nursing school within the centre to complement its operations.” Doherty said that AfrExim Bank hopes to replicate the project in other regions of Africa.

She added that AMCE would commence operations this month with out-patient diagnosis, oncology and nuclear medicine and that it would scale up with In-patient services by the end of the month.

“By the third month, the centre will roll out its full services,” she said.

Speaking on the objective of establishing AMCE, Doherty said the bank believes that health is wealth, adding that the project is not about profit-making.

She said that another motivation driving the implementation of the project is that it would help boost trade in medical services and related products across Africa.

“We believe it’s only a healthy person that could engage in trade. We took a deliberate decision because we believe that health is wealth and that a healthy continent is a wealthy continent,” she said.

The MD gave credit to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afrexim Bank, Prof. Benedict Uramah, for kick-starting the bold initiative to address healthcare challenges facing Africa.

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