BY MICHAEL EBOH & CHINEDU IBEABUCHI

Chief executive officers of banks  and other financial institutions in Nigeria are considering increasing their support and investment in the country’s health sector.

This was revealed at the LiveWell Initiative, LWI, Grand Health Bazaar, GHB, 2012, sponsored by United States Consulate General, Skye Bank Plc, Pfizer Specialities, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Plc, UTC Nigeria Plc, Nestle Plc, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc and May & Baker Nigeria Plc and the Lagos State Government in Lagos.

Banks’ executives and health practitioners at the forum called on stakeholders in the financial sector to invest heavily in the health sector and contribute meaningfully in reducing the heavy cost of health services for majority of the citizens.

A health practitioner, Mr. Jimi  Agbaje enjoined government and financial institutions to adopt the strategy employed by public and private sectors in the United States of America, which spend trillions of dollars annually in reducing the heavy cost of health services for their citizens.

According to him, health is crucial to the development of any economy, hence, it should not be left alone to the government or a few individuals.

Also speaking, Mr Kehinde Durosinmi-Etti, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Skye Bank Plc, condemned the neglect of health issues, the low attitude to health awareness and inaccessibility to health facilities, a factor which he said is negatively affecting manpower development in the country.

Mr. Obinna Abajue, Head Personal and Business Banking, Stanbic IBTC Plc, lamented the fact that a vast majority of Nigerians are devoting more time to financial pursuit without equal attention to robust health, a development which he said has led to the reduction of life expectancy ratio in the country to 48 years.

Mrs Modupe Mujota, Non-Executive Director, Kakawa Asset Management Limited, expressed support for the views of other speakers, and also stressed on the need to build a strong and viable health insurance scheme at minimum cost to individuals to help reduce health bills in case of huge sickness.

Speaking on the necessity of the seminar, Mrs. Bisi Bright, Chief Executive Officer, LWI, said, “We discovered long ago that people generally indulge in unhealthy habits and they do nothing much about their health until there is an exigency or emergency.

“The situation is also worsened by the fact that the health sector separates itself from other sectors of the economy without truly realising it, thus the idea at LWI is to organise a multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary, cross-cutting exposition which would bring the health sector and organised private sector together in a mutually synergistic atmosphere of commerce and networking, for the benefit of the health of the people.”