Aisha Buhari wants review of multiple taxes, interest rates

First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari has called for a review of cases of multiple taxes and interest rates on loans by banks for the establishment of private hospitals. 

Speaking when she received the Guild of Medical Directors, on a courtesy visit to her, Mrs. Buhari observed that private hospitals play a strategic complementary role in providing a social service that benefits millions of Nigerians, appealing for tax incentives to reduce the cost of healthcare.

She commended the patriotic zeal with which doctors discharge their duties, in some cases even at the cost of their lives. She called for a one-minute silence for the repose of the soul of the late Dr. Ameyo Adadevoh, who lost her life while saving an Ebola patient in Lagos, and two other doctors that died while saving the life of a Lassa fever victim in Kano. These doctors, she said, displayed a high sense of patriotism.

Mrs. Buhari also appealed to Nigerians to be vigilant and observe the stringent prevention and control measures against the novel corona virus (COVID 19), which has become pandemic. 

Earlier, President of the Guild, Prof. Femi Babalola listed some of the challenges hindering practitioners from optimal provision of universal healthcare for the teeming masses to include: non-recognition of private hospitals as an essential arm of the healthcare structure in Nigeria, multiple and excessive taxation and lack of access to reasonable credit facilities.
 
He called for the establishment of a special private healthcare intervention fund to cater for the services of private hospitals.