Opportunities in Healthcare

The healthcare sector in Kenya & generally in Africa is showing signs of remarkable improvement as the quality of hospitals and the availability of qualified doctors has dramatically improved over the last

Demand for quality healthcare services across the African continent continues to grow by leaps and bounds over the past few years. By shifting attention from the traditional medicine to well structure modern healthcare systems, and investments in the latter, many African nations have now been able to largely meet the growing demand for better healthcare services for their citizens.

This demand has been greatly influenced by improving economies across Africa, a rising middle class population, remarkable improvements in hospitals and other healthcare delivery channels, availability of qualified well trained doctors and other medical practitioners among other positive trends.

Key players in the healthcare sector in Africa are mainly Governments, Religious Organisations and the private sector.

There exists a number of challenges which include the rising HIV Aids infection, TB and Malaria, Malnutrition & Hunger-which continue to place enormous strain on the public health systems, insufficient capital and infrastructural investments especially on research to fully support healthcare systems, illiteracy in some parts of the continent and over reliance on traditional forms of medicine.

As a direct result of these challenges, there exists huge potential for those looking for investment/ business opportunities in healthcare services provision in this continent.

I believe focus should be on quality, affordability and accessibility of these services to the general public.  Since most healthcare products in Africa are imported, there are also immense opportunities on the supply chain of hospital equipments, machinery e.g. x-ray equipments, mammograms, CT-scanners, instrumentation, prescription drugs and other medical allied products and services.

A 2007 report by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimated the market for healthcare will more than double by 2016, going up to $35 billion and the private sector is poised  to provide up to 60% of this to meet the demand. 
Private/Public partnerships may also offer a viable option into the future.

Other extremely viable business opportunities exist in:

·        Commercialization of the Infectious diseases innovation

·        Distribution and retail of medical supplies

·        Risk pooling as in Insurance

·        Adjusting products to meet unmet demand, particularly among the poor    Creating new models for mobile, remote and home based healthcare

·        Medical training & education

·        Using the rapid mobile telephony penetration to create new opportunities e.g. In Kenya one can now pay their monthly premiums using the famous M-PESA innovation. What of a subscription service with doctors/specialists on the same platform?? Food for thought!!!!!