COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the whole world has stretched health facilities of nations including the developed countries beyond their installed capacities. Nigeria being a developing country is faced with multiple health issues amidst other social economic challenges. The country requires well equipped health facilities to respond appropriately to multi-dimensional health issues confronting the populace. The global lockdown experienced in 2020 has shown that health tourism to other countries is not sustainable. Apart from the huge cost of flying patients abroad, Covid-19 has made most countries to shut their doors to health tourists. There is currently a huge gap between availability of quality health services and demand for it. While major cities in Nigeria such as Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, Kaduna, Enugu and Ibadan can boast of well-equipped hospitals that can effectively handle specialized health issues, the story is not the same for other state capitals such as Lokoja, Ado Ekiti, Osogbo, Lafia, Umuahia, Birnin Kebbi among others. The citizens of these developing Nigerian cities that cannot afford travelling abroad engage in local health tourism within Nigeria where specialized cases are often referred to better equipped hospitals in bigger cities. This comes at huge cost to the citizens and some avoidable death occurred while transiting patients from one city to another.

Addressing this gap of availability of well-equipped hospital in Lokoja, Kogi State Nigeria, we established Carecrest Hospital in 2017 to provide a standard health care services to the populace of Kogi State and the neighbouring ten states. Over the last three years the hospital has grown to become one of the dominant private hospitals in Lokoja metropolis. The hospital also runs a specialty clinic as a fertility clinic where citizens that need this specialty to address their fertility health issues are given opportunity to do so without travelling out of Lokoja. Instead we have patients coming to Lokoja from neighbouring cities and states to take advantage of this service.

Carecrest Hospital currently have the need for business expansion that will focus on acquisition of specialized fertility medical equipment, expansion of hospital pharmacy, employment of more personnel, upgrading of our equipment and general ambience of the hospital. To finance this business expansion project, we have identified Central Bank of Nigeria’s ‘’100 billion Credit support scheme for health sectors’’ through deposit money banks as a main vehicle. We bank with First Bank of Nigeria Ltd, Ganaja junction branch and as such we are running our request through First Bank in fulfilment of one of the criteria as laid down by CBN for this product which expect intending applications to be submitted and processed through a deposit money bank registered and licenced in Nigeria.

Through a diligent engagement and planning with focus on profitability driven by provision of quality health care services, Carecrest Hospital needs a total sum of N204,335,210.50 two hundred and four million, three hundred and thirty five thousand naira, fifty kobo to finance our business expansion. Details of how this fund would be allocated, the revenue that would be generated, the timeline of profitability and repayment schedule as well as business analysis are articulated for your processing and approval in this business plan. We are confident that while this is a business venture with profitability concern, we will also present a world class health platform that will contribute her quota in addressing health concerns of the populace, creating job opportunities for qualified personnel thereby ensuring a social economic development of Kogi state and Nigeria as a country

Dr Seyi Folagbade
February 2021