nuclear-news

Nuclear agency stifle private health growth in Nigeria

Published on Saturday,

20 July 2013 06:00

Written by Ruby Leo and Judd Leonard Okafor

Private health investors and practitioners have said that the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NNRA) is frustrating and hampering the import of equipment for medical imaging services in the country with its ‘exorbitant charges’.

Image source ; http://www.noi-polls.net/index.php?s_id=3&p_id=152&p_pt=1&parent=11#.UfG6v85x0xA

Senator Ikechukwu Abana, chairman of LifeBridge Diagnostics, which runs high-tech dialysis, laboratory and imaging equipment that use radiation, insisted that NNRA charges “target medical radiation equipment like CT scanners and X-ray machines.”

He said LifeBridge opened with equipment for mammography, electrocardio-gram and imaging—including a 64-slice CT scanner capable of getting full brain scan in five seconds and a full body scan in 10 seconds.
But Abana said NNRA charges exorbitant fees “at par with what they charge oil companies that make their profits in billions of naira.”

He also called for import duty concessions to medical service providers as well as a reduction in multiple taxation, insisting that they “pose serious challenges and barriers to entry for investors in the healthcare sector.”

Meanwhile President Goodluck Jonathan, who commissioned LifeBridge Diagnostics Centre in Abuja, insisted that medical equipment to be installed in health facilities in Nigeria would be duty free to support the growth of private health sector.

http://weeklytrust.com.ng/index.php/new-news/13355-nuclear-agency-stifle-private-health-growth

July 25, 2013 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized