By Lamin Cham
A new revenue collection initiative agreed between Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital and Guaranty Trust Bank has realised over two hundred percent increase in revenue compared to the past.
Under the agreement, now in place for a month, all consultations and other fees at the hospital and its annexes such as Polyclinic, SOPD, Cardio Unit and Ndeban Clinic in Bakau are paid to GTBank which deploys implant tellers at the facilities.
Though the actual figures collected by GTBank from 5 March to 5 April have not been revealed, a credible hospital source disclosed that the bank collected over 240% revenue compared to the less than D2 million revenue raised in February 2024.
When contacted for comment, Malick Mboob, the bank’s group head for public sector division, the unit that oversees this operation at GTBank who represented the bank at the launching of the agreement last month, told The Standard: “I don’t have the authority to talk to the media on behalf of my organisation because of strict customer confidentiality but the hospital management can tell you.”
The Standard has been told that despite initial resistance from some quarters, the initiative has now been widely applauded across the health sector. “The outsourcing of revenue collection was the best the hospital management came up with. We cannot confirm the actual amount, but we believe that GTBank tellers collected close to D5 million as of 5th April,” our hospital source confirmed.
The source said “the massive improvement” in the revenue collection means “a lot of money has been lost through stealing and leakages”.
The Standard contacted a source at the Ministry of Finance who confirmed that “the initiative has yielded unprecedented dividends” and “will certainly be replicated in all other medical facilities” across the country.
