The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of New Crystal Services Limited, Dr. Wisdom Amegbletor who disclosed this to the Times Business on the sidelines of a health seminar in Accra said, the move was to raise capital to expand the infrastructure base of the hospital.

New Crystal Health Services Limited, which provides general and specialist healthcare services and was established thirteen years ago, currently has hospitals in Ashaiman, Adjei-Kojo, Afenyo, Tema Michel Camp and Takoradi.

The seminar which formed part of the corporate social responsibility of New Crystal Services Limited was to educate the newly qualified doctors and medical professionals on the opportunities that exist in the health sector and also expose them to entrepreneurial skills.

Dr. Amegbletor explained that the objective of his outfit was to improve infrastructure of the hospital and also support more qualified doctors to go into private practice to stop the brain drain.

“It is envisaged that by 2018, we should complete the infrastructure expansion of New Crystal Health Services Limited,” he said.

Dr. Amegbletor disclosed that when the expansion programme was completed, his outfit would begin to train and support new qualified doctors to go into private practice.

“Our intention is to go into health and medical franchising, whereby New Crystal Health Services Limited will be supporting newly qualified doctors to set up their own medical facilities to employ more qualified health professionals,” he said.

He said there were huge opportunities in the health industry in Ghana, and given the right support and resources doctors in Ghana could make it like their counterparts who have sojourn and were practising in the developed countries.

For instance, the CEO said, the disease burden on the country and the huge investment being made in the health sector by the government and development partners presented opportunities to doctors to open their own private hospitals and clinics.

In addition, he said, there was increasing foreign direct investment into the health sector in Ghana, saying foreign investors were looking for health and pharmaceutical companies in Ghana to buy.

According to the CEO investment opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry alone in Africa currently, stood at $30 billion and was projected to grow to $45 billion by the year 2020.

To this end, he entreated the newly qualified doctors to set up their own companies after their “five years post medical practice”. This could be done through group practice, joint ventures and public-private partnership.

 By Kingsley Asare