Equipment Leasing Association of Nigeria Limited (ELAN) has called on the health sector to align with opportunities leasing companies in Nigeria provide by getting facilities for effective and efficient operations in the country.
This call is driven by the discovery that 85 percent of companies in this sector have never applied for financing. Only 75 percent have received a business loan in the last three years and there was a decline from 49 percent to 26 percent of loan application due to lack of collateral and credit history, respectively.
It is therefore against this background that ELAN organised its 12th National Lease Conference with the theme, ‘Enhancing Healthcare Delivery in Nigeria: The Role of Equipment Leasing,’ with the aim of creating awareness of the suitable option of financing the health sector which leasing companies provide.
While addressing stakeholders at the conference, Chuka Onwuchekwa, chairman, board of directors, ELAN, explained that the conference was held this year for all the people in the health sector to know that they can get all the equipment they need through leasing as a financing option.
READ ALSO: Stakeholders in health sector renew commitment to abate mortality rate
According to him, “when these equipments are not available and patients travel abroad to get treatment, it will simply lead to depletion of the cash foreign exchange in the country. If the hospitals can avail themselves of opportunities that the leasing companies provide them by getting these critical equipments, the health sector will improve tremendously.”
Once hospitals meet all the risk acceptance criteria, it becomes easy to go to a leasing company to get equipments since they will not ask for an initial down payment, as they will require installment payment, Onwuchekwa further said.
“We are collaborating with foreign development finance institutions that have created loans and are dedicated to SMEs. Hospitals, health centres and clinics, among others can approach leasing companies to enable them finance those equipments because the terms of financing, using a lease option is more favourable,” he said.
Aisha Ahmed, head, retail, Diamond Bank plc, said “helping to finance the building of institutions that can provide the kind of care that our population needs and the country is very important, and the finance can come in different forms and one of them is the equipment finance.”
The health care sector must make itself viable as a business, even though it is a social right of every individual; the companies that are in the private health care sector must be efficient, which includes having the right corporate and administrative structures that make them efficient and economically viable, she said.
“This will make financiers provide the long- or short-term finance that is required. It is also important to create pools of specialisation in the medical sector, which will enhance the industry, make it more robust and make it more attractive for people to lend,” she said.
Ifeoma Okeke
