Sterling Bank, C/River partner on health supply chain transformation project

Sterling Bank Plc has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Cross River State Government and a consortium of healthcare providers to provide services for the Cross River Health Supply Chain Transformation Project.

Speaking at the signing ceremony in Lagos over the weekend, Mr Obinna Ukachukwu, Divisional Head, Health and Education Sectors with Sterling Bank, said, “I am excited that this is happening. It is the beginning of good things to come and I hope other states in the country would replicate the strategy that has been put in place by the Cross River State Government to address the challenges in its health supply chain.”

He said SterlingBank would de-risk any sector of the Nigerian economy that is willing to adopt a similar strategy through re-imagining finance. This is about putting in place the structure to render service before introducing formal banking transactions in a bid to ensure a win-win situation for the parties involved in the arrangement, he said.

The MoU is the sequel to the bank’s partnership with the Cross River State Government on the implementation of a Health Insurance Scheme tagged: Ayade Care. The scheme was launched recently in Calabar, the state capital, as part of the effort to achieve health insurance cover for vulnerable citizens in Cross River.

Ukachukwuexplained that health is one of the five sectors where Sterling Bank is concentrating investments under its HEART’s of Sterling programme in a bid to make an impact in the Nigerian economy. The other sectors are Education, Agriculture, Renewable Energy and Transportation.

Also speaking, Dr Betta Edu, Commissioner for Health, Cross River State, expressed happiness at state’s readiness to finally implement the Health Supply Chain Transformation Project.

She explained that the state’s healthcare policy revolves around providing quality healthcare services through universal health coverage, adding that there is absolutely no way the state could achieve its objective without functional pharmaceutical services.
She said, “We are ready to drive this innovative arrangement to get results and what is very important to us is to ensure that people get universal access to quality medicines. We will ensure that people in rural areas, general hospitals, secondary facilities and private facilities, primary healthcare centres and even dispensaries have access to drugs.

“We will open the entire horizon to those who are coming in from primary institutions. We hope to run it at the speed of light because we have lost sometimes already and we hope in the next two to three months, we will be ready with facilities and drugs so that we can be up and running.”