GSK in £3m support to local health sector

Britain’s biggest drug maker, GlaxoSmithKline, has backed Rwanda’s drive to expand its health care services by investing almost £3m in a series of rural clinics. Glaxo has agreed a partnership that will enable nurses in Rwanda to establish their own clinics and run them as small businesses. The scheme is part of the pharmaceutical giant’s pledge to reinvest 20pc of the profits it makes in developing economies, by helping those countries to improve their health care infrastructure. The collaboration comes after Glaxo set up a unit in 2010 dedicated to least developed countries (LDC), including Angola and Zimbabwe. Under the partnership with Glaxo, Africa’s Ecobank and Healthstore Holdings, Rwanda aims to establish 240 “health posts” over the next three years. These clinics will provide high quality essential medicines and basic health care to about two million people a year in rural Rwanda. Following a pilot scheme in Kenya, the clinics will be run by nurses under a franchise model. Duncan Learmouth, who heads Glaxo’s LDC unit, said that nurses would pay a licence fee to join the franchise, entitling them to set up their own clinic and take out a microfinance loan to equip it. “[It] enables them to create a small business around the clinic. Once they reach 20 to 25 patients a day, it enables them to break even and start making a profit,” he said. “One of the issues in Africa, it’s not just about availability of medicines but about the quality of interaction,” he added. “This system is also a positive for that. The nurse wants patients to come back and have a good patient experience.” Glaxo has already committed £900,000 to get some clinics up and running and is providing a further £1.8m as an interest-free loan, from which it will not profit, and there is no expectation that the clinics have to stock the company’s products.

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GSK in £3m support to local health sector