Medical Credit Fund phase II launched
THE phase two of PharmAccess's Medical Credit Fund (MCF) has been launched to help resolve some of the funding challenges in the health sector.
The MCF II was launched in Accra last week with the aim to help boost Ghana's healthcare delivery and make it more sustainable and effective.
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The fund, which is a €32.5m loan facility, is intended to reduce the challenges faced by small and medium sized healthcare companies in accessing loans and other credit facilities to widen their operations and expand their outreach.
Speaking at the launch of the loan facility on March 23, the Country Manager of the MCF, Derrick Ewudzie-Odoom, explained that the essence of the facility was to deal with the bottlenecks associated with healthcare financing in Ghana.
Mr Ewudzie-Odoom said his outfit was aware of the unique challenges affecting health care businesses in the country.
He, therefore, stated that the loans from MFC II were designed to address these challenges, without demanding collaterals from the loan applicants.
Support and training
“Over the years, our work has not been only loans. We do not just give loans but we accompany all the loans that we give with business support, quality support and training. And when we talk about business support, we help all the health SMEs design investment plans.”
“A lot of the times, health businesses have ideas that do not culminate into plans and we engage them and we design these plans so that they can go; and we also help them. We provide financial management advice to ensure that they manage their business finances well," the MD of MCF said.
He said the company also assisted businesses in terms of their project planning.
“When they want to do construction, we help them with the construction management; how the patient flow is supposed to be and the design of the hospital so that it will be in tandem with modern trends," he added.
Testimony
At the ceremony, the first MCF II loan was presented to the Emil Memorial Hospital at Wenchi.
Prior to presentation of a dummy cheque of GH¢3 milliojn, the Chief Executive Officer of the hospital, Dr Simon Koku Saku, testified to the support of the fund in the hospital's operations.
In his delivery, he stated that since its establishment, the hospital had gone through some difficulties in the course of rendering health care services to the locals in its environs. Dr Saku said in other to widen its operations, the hospital agreed to construct some departments; an initiative, which was made possible by the MCF II.
"We approached several financial institutions, both local and international to help finance the project of completing a two-storey building to accommodate these departments. But unfortunately, none was ready to lend us a hand by giving us the credit required.”
“We heard of the MCF through PharmAccess and decided to approach them to help finance the project. After a careful evaluation of the project, the MCF agreed to fund the project and also purchase medical equipment, worth millions of Ghana cedis.”
“The project is scheduled to be completed in June this year," he said.