Symposium organized by the Medical Credit Fund for its banking partners in Mombasa, Kenya

Symposium ’Financing Needs of the Private Healthcare Sector’ led to valuable suggestions from different perspectives.

22 February 2012

Symposium organized by the Medical Credit Fund for its banking partners in Mombasa, Kenya. The main objective of the symposium was to discuss additional propositions for creating a more steady flow of capital to healthcare facilities to finance growth of operations. The day led to many suggestions and new insights and feed-back of the participants were very positive.

A one-day symposium organized by the Medical Credit Fund for its banking partners was held in Mombasa, Kenya, on February 9th. The main objective of the symposium was to discuss additional propositions for creating a more steady flow of capital to healthcare facilities to finance growth of operations. The day led to many suggestions and new insights and feed-back of the participants were very positive. Monique Dolfing, Managing Director of the Medical Credit Fund, confirmed the high value of the symposium: "This symposium was extremely useful for all of us. It provided an excellent occasion to meet with our nine partners from four different countries, to exchange experiences with the MCF program so far and to share ideas about future developments. To this end, our guest speakers presented very valuable views and insights on healthcare financing, coming from various perspectives."  A  similar day will therefore be repeated in the future.

Different guest speakers presented their perspective on how to improve financing for private health facilities. Onno Schellekens, Managing Director of the Investment Fund for Health in Africa (IFHA), shared his investors' perspective by looking at the necessity to combine private and public capital effectively, in order to increase the number of investments in Healthcare in Africa. Subsequently Dr. Kaushik Ramaiya, Board member of the Association for Private Healthcare Facilities in Tanzania (APHFTA) talked in detail about the institutional environment of private healthcare and the need for public private partnerships; Bayo Sanni, Senior VP of First City Monument Bank provided an insight into banking dilemmas and opportunities in Nigeria; Dr Khama Rogo, Lead Health Sector Specialist with the Africa for Health Initiative of the World Bank and IFC, explained the complementarities of public and private health systems and the role of Governments; and Michiel Slootweg, COO of AAR attended to the options for strengthening the demand side, and the challenges and opportunities for health insurance companies. Finally, Charles Gore, health market specialist, indicated current and future investment alternatives.

The valuable contributions in the form of suggestions and ideas will be explored to see how they can be integrated in the MCF program. Some of the suggestions made by the participants are already on the radar screen of the fund.  For example, a program is under preparation with support from Pfizer to develop a loan product for small pharmacies. Also the possibility of provisioning of larger loan amounts to clinics that have a large growth potential are being considered.
 
In addition to the one day symposium a meeting was held the next day with the purpose of identifying short and long term policy and product development opportunities and for further discussion of the suggestions made during the symposium.