Private clinics in Kenya can apply for up to Sh1.7 million in loans to stabilise their operations if they were hurt by the Covid-19 lockdown.
The money can finance essential medical equipment, including PPE, and finance small-scale construction to protect patients from Covid-19 infection.
The loan facility has been created by the Health Finance Coalition, a group of philanthropies, investors, donors and technical partners and is open to medical investors in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda.
In total, the facility makes more than Sh3 billion ($30 million) available to private, small- and medium enterprise health providers in the five countries, considered for their high malaria burden, the investors said in a statement.
They said the loans will help facilities to continue offering essential health services, including malaria treatments, to more than five million Africans.
One of the investors, the Medical Credit Fund, which has offices in Kenya, said many of its clients were under pressure due to patients decrease during the Covid-19 outbreak.
“This agreement helps us to further support health entrepreneurs so they can continue providing the services needed to keep their communities healthy,” Kennedy Okong'o, East Africa director of the fund, said.
Slightly more than half of all health facilities in Kenya are private, and 37 per cent of all health spending occurs in private facilities, according to the Kenya National Health Accounts.
Since many countries shut down sectors of their economies and asked citizens to remain at home to slow the spread of Covid-19 last year, all health providers saw a decrease in demand for services.
For private healthcare providers, this meant decreased revenues, putting them at risk of closing during a time when access to care was already a challenge, the investors said.
“Investing in these important health systems can help countries in sub-Saharan Africa withstand the current pandemic while supporting millions of people who rely on these facilities,” Nafisa Jiwani, head of health initiatives in the US International Development Finance Corporation, said.
The Sh3 billion fund comprises investments by the US President’s Malaria Initiative, US International Development Finance Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Skoll Foundation, and the MCJ Amelior Foundation.
Additional support comes from the US Agency for International Development’s Center for Innovation and Impact.
The loan facility will be managed by Malaria No More and loans will be administered through the Medical Credit Fund, a non-profit health investment fund.
