EquityBCDC, through its Social Investment division, is launching the Equity Afia project’s pilot phase, a franchised health clinic chain designed to widen access to high-quality, affordable and integrated health services in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Through this initiative, the bank aims to create wealth-creation opportunities for doctors within a network of clinics that are well supervised and efficiently managed to increase employment in the healthcare sector.” Said Celestin Mukeba, Managing Director of EquityBCDC
Equity Afia is a sustainable financing model for improving access to primary healthcare services. From 29 November 2022 to 14 December 2022, EquityBCDC published a recruitment offer for doctors for these clinics in several provinces of the DRC: Haut-Katanga, Lualaba, Kasaï, Kasaï Oriental, Kasaï Central, Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, Kongo Central and Kinshasa.
923 candidate resident doctors in the DRC who met the bank’s selection criteria were invited to take a written test. Following this, with a view to the launch of the first 30 AFIA clinics forming part of the pilot phase, a total of 67 doctors were interviewed between 8 and 12 May 2023 and 30 doctors were selected.
On Thursday, 15 June 2023, EquityBCDC began training these 30 doctors. The training aims to provide a grounding in management and entrepreneurship and to improve medical practices. It also includes an induction on banking and financial education.
On completion of the training, the doctors will be assigned to the first Equity AFIA pilot clinics to begin patient management activities. Recruitment of doctors will continue during the second phase of the project.
