Wednesday 29th December 2021: The Central Bank of Nigeria in its last Monetary Policy Committee meeting said it disbursed N108.65bn to hospitals and pharmaceutical industry in 18 months.

A CBN report said “The bank has also cumulatively disbursed the sum of N108.65bn to hospitals and pharmaceutical industry; 54 of the 117 projects funded are for hospital services.

“The committee was gratified that the funding under health sector has resulted in the establishment of two new cancer centres, over 59 MRI and more than 42 CT scan centres in Nigeria, within the last 18 months.”

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said recently that medical tourism was putting a huge strain on the country’s foreign reserves, adding that the CBN and other banks would support the healthcare sector to reverse the trend.

He said, “Medical tourism puts a huge strain on our foreign reserves, and more importantly, for every $1bn allocated to medical treatment abroad, there is less than $1bn that could be available to other critical sectors of our economy.

“As part of this effort, the CBN and select private sector stakeholders supported COVID-19 intervention initiatives through CACOVID.”

Emefiele said to further drive the recovery of the economy, the monetary policy recognized that while the interventions in the manufacturing sector were essential, it was also important to continue to give support to the medical sector.

He encouraged banks to lend and the private sector to also invest in the country.

The Governor added that the CBN would tell the banks to help restructure the loan facilities of the hospital as it was pleased with the project.