Huge investment in the healthcare sector will improve the economy and help the government in ease of doing business and also in delivering quality health service to Nigerians, Ola Brown, founder of Flying Doctors Nigeria have said.
According to the CEO, professionals in various disciplines especially in the health care industry should imbibe entrepreneurship skills as it is the only way to achieving success in their businesses.
Brown, the manager of the influential healthcare- Air ambulances recently gave the advise during her presentation at the Lit subnational Tour organised by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council and the Lagos State Government.
She noted that it was one thing to be professionally sound, “but a different ball game to run the business aspects of various disciplines successfully.”
Apart from ending poverty, having quality education, one of the most pressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needs in Nigeria is ensuring healthy lives and the promotion of well-being for all at all ages.
In Nigeria, access to good health care is a luxury many cannot afford. No wonder the country’s average life expectancy rate is one of the lowest in the world at 52.2 years.
“Nigeria’s federal budget for healthcare is $1billion and the population is almost 200 million. We need to donate more money and until we get a large investment in the healthcare with where every single person in every single place begins to feel it,”Brown said.
She recommended that Nigeria needs to look at the duties on medical equipment and see how it can bring which ever taxes or duties down to zero, asserting that it would make people to be able to bring more medical equipment into the country.
Over the past 3 years, Nigeria has implemented more than 140 reforms, increased its Distance-to-Frontier (DTF) score by over 11 basis points, and moved up 24 places in the World Bank Doing Business Index (DBI) rankings.
“For me visa on arrival has changed the way my business runs forever. Flying Doctors like every air ambulance service in the world is focused on moving patients from an area where there is an overwhelmed level of care to a more suitable level of care,” Brown said while commenting on Ease of doing business.
According to her, every year, there is an event that involves people climbing the mountain in Chad to look at some historic structures and there usually accident in the process.
“So can you imagine, trying to move an American or a European into a Nigerian hospital, you have to move them to the center of Chad first and wait two days for a visa there while the patient is critical before you can get them into Nigeria.”
According to Brown, “now we can fly directly to the accident scene and bring them straight into Lagos, they get their visa on arrival when they get here and we can take them to the hospital. I will tell you what that does, each of these patients are intensive care patients, they spend around $50,000 each.”
She said one can imagine if 1,000 to 5,000 of those patients were brought in to Lagos annually.
“The business services are making money because now they are making money from their charges when they issue visa.The hospitals are making money; the doctors can be paid better salaries. Even sometimes the relatives have to fly in to stay in hotels in Lagos. So it is a really huge boost to the economy,” Brown said.
ANTHONIA OBOKOH
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
