ELAN, Operator, Sign MoU To Reposition Nigeria’s Healthcare Industry

Following the huge successes recorded in other sectors of the economy and poised to contribute even much more, operators in the nation’s leasing industry under the aegis of the Equipment Leasing Association of Nigeria (ELAN) are set to forage into the healthcare sector as part of repositioning to meet the huge infrastructure and other challenges affecting the sector.
This followed the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding between ELAN and Swiss Biostadt Limited, a renowned healthcare equipment vendor, as part of a partnership expected to stimulate development of the healthcare sector and offer players in the healthcare sector with the needed equipment, for enhanced service delivery.
Commenting on this development, Executive Secretary of the Association, Andrew Efurhievwe, said Nigeria has over the years grappled with the challenge of providing efficient healthcare services to its people.
He blamed this on the lack of necessary equipment and other infrastructure to enhance service delivery, rather than the shortage of personnel, resulting in an increase in avoidable deaths due to wrong diagnosis and treatment. This is why, many who can spend huge foreign exchange to procure medical treatment for themselves and their loved ones abroad.
The contemporary development in the sector where technology drives most activity, and efforts concentrated on capital investment in modern equipment to meet the increasing demand of healthcare services, has necessitated the increasing need and demand for efficient medical equipment to facilitate effective diagnosis and treatment. This has forced healthcare providers to constantly match the pace of medical technology and offer optimal treatment and care despite budget constraints.
Considering the volume of funding required to facilitate substantial development, appropriate initiatives and funding mechanisms for addressing the problem must be sought, the ELAN boss said, stressing that “leasing is considered a major financing option that can be used to facilitate access to the much needed equipment, necessary to address the infrastructure challenges and improve service delivery in the sector”.
According to a statement by ELAN, Leasing can provide health care institutions with easy access to state-of-the-art medical equipment that would aid their daily operations, without waiting for the accumulation of enough capital budgets to proceed with the procurement of medical equipment.
The statement listed the benefits of leasing to these institutions to include the fact that no collateral is required; just as there are “more flexible payment options and occasionally no down payment required; frees up capital for extra expenditure; 100% or more financing which include hardware, software, installation, maintenance, training, all of which can be encompassed in the lease contract.”
As a sign of the level of significance of the global recognition leasing has gained, there are today creative financing alternative for the acquisition of capital assets, just as it continues to contribute to Nigeria’s national development, creating wealth and improving the economy.
In the last 10 years, for example, the nation’s leasing industry added assets worth over N4.65tr to capital formation in the Nigerian economy, while outstanding lease volume in 2016 stood at N1.26tr, up from N1.1tr in 2015, representing a growth rate of 14%. The impactful visibility of leasing is increasing in various sectors of the economy and exhibits a brighter future given its developmental attributes.

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