The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank has approved a Senior Loan in Naira (equivalent to USD 20 million) to Santa Clara Medical Limited, a healthcare project promoted by AXA Mansard, a member of the AXA Group, Africa Capital Alliance, IFC and Healthshare Health Solutions, the hospital management company of the project. The funds will be used to finance the development of a hospital located in Lekki Phase1 and referral clinics across the city. By supporting investment in healthcare infrastructure, the AfDB hopes to help the Nigerian government develop human capital through improved service delivery in the healthcare system.

According to the African Development Bank, Lagos State, Nigeria’s largest healthcare market, lacks an adequate supply of quality secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities with only about 700 to 1,000 quality beds for a population of over 21 million people.

The hospital and referral clinics will be situated in different locations in Lagos and will upon completion in 2020, provide a full spectrum of high-quality general and specialist healthcare services at competitive prices. It is expected to have positive economic and social benefits for the city of Lagos and will create around 250 temporary jobs during the construction period and 600 jobs over its operational phase. More importantly, it will significantly improve private healthcare services by offering quality general medical services in addition to specialty services such as orthopaedic, nephrology, urology, cardiology and neurosurgery that are largely unavailable in the country.

Dr Abdu Mukhtar, AfDB’s Director of Industrialization and Trade Development said:

 “This situation currently forces over 30,000 Nigerians to spend over USD 1 billion on medical tourism for specialty treatments overseas. Completing this project would allow the country’s healthcare sector to benefit from some of these resources.” 

Other activity in the healthcare investment space in recent months include AFREXIM’s partnership with Kings College Hospital to develop centres of excellence, Lagoon’s repositioning and acquisition of Goldcross Hospital, the Admiralty Evercare Hospital and Twin Lakes Hospital backed with private equity capital as well as the recent announcement from Trivitron Healthcare Africa.