Afreximbank’s President and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Professor Benedict Oramah and his delegation, were invited to an audience at Abuja’s State House with Nigeria’s President, His Excellency Bola Tinubu. Professor Oramah’s delegation included Mr. Brian Deaver, Chief Executive Officer of the African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE), H.E. Amb. Minata Samate Cessouma, AU Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development, AMCE Abuja Board Members, representatives of Kings College Hospital, London (KCH) and Kings College London (KCL). Also, in attendance was the Honourable Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Mohammed Ali Pate. The meeting centered on the Bank’s initiatives and financing support to the country and specifically focused on the progress and potential impact of the 500 bed African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE) Abuja, as well as its broader implications for healthcare across Africa.
All parties affirmed the importance of the AMCE Abuja project as a flagship development with potentially transformative implications for African healthcare, both significantly reducing the need for outbound, extra-African medical tourism by providing world-class medical services on the continent and, by extension, stemming the tide of healthcare talent migration from Africa. The Abuja facility will focus on three core non-communicable diseases (Oncology, Haematology and Cardiology) and general care capabilities, and partly reflects co-operation with global partners including KCH, the University of Wisconsin Teaching Hospital, USA, and the Christies Hospital, Manchester, are serving to demonstrate the direction in which African healthcare provision should go in order to better serve the continent.
The AMCE Abuja, which is nearing completion, is the first of five such centres planned across Africa. The facility will constitute a leading centre for research and development in medicine and clinical services, as well as offering residency, training and observership placement programmes to physicians and medical students from Nigeria and other parts of Africa. To complement the AMCE Abuja and develop human resources in healthcare, Afreximbank has entered an arrangement with KCL to establish a Medical & Nursing School in Abuja to support the production of quality medical personnel in Africa. The platform will also be used to collaborate with other colleges of medicine in Nigeria and across Africa. President Oramah’s wide-ranging discussion with His Excellency President Tinubu also touched upon the landmark memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between Afreximbank and the Federal Ministry of Health to support the development of Nigeria’s healthcare sector under the Presidential Initiative for Unlocking Healthcare Value Chains (PVAC) through a US$1 billion Healthcare Value Chain Programme.
President of Nigeria, His Excellency Bola Tinubu, commented; “We welcome this significant step towards investing in Nigeria’s healthcare sector. This facility is a great commitment to humanity. We are open and ready to assist this project in every way possible. Africa is in need, and Nigeria is committed to the need of its people. Putting people’s welfare first is putting healthcare first. The training and development of our people are our priorities, and we thank Afreximbank and their partners for their ongoing support.” Afreximbank President and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Prof. Benedict Oramah, commented; “I am grateful to President Tinubu for his time, and for an animated and engaging discussion on our continent’s central challenges: the provision and delivery of quality, effective healthcare. For too long, our continent has watched as its best and brightest medical minds have migrated to Europe and America – but we are now poised to develop a domestic healthcare sector which can retain talent, eventually rivalling and even surpassing systems in other regions.”
