Nigeria’s medical equipment market has a problem money alone cannot solve

A hospital can spend millions of naira on a sophisticated diagnostic machine and still be unable to provide the service it was bought for.

The machine may arrive but remain unused because there is no trained operator. It may work for a few years and then become idle because spare parts are unavailable or maintenance was never properly budgeted. A facility may also discover that the equipment it bought does not match the volume or type of patients it actually serves.

For Umeh Chibuike, founder and chief executive officer of Healthhub Medical Nigeria Limited, this is one of the less visible problems holding back healthcare delivery in Nigeria.

“Medical equipment should never be seen as just a purchase; it is a long-term healthcare asset,” Chibuike told BusinessDay.

His argument comes at a time when Nigeria’s healthcare infrastructure remains under considerable pressure. The latest Nigeria Health Systems and Services Profile by the Africa Health Observatory Platform, supported by the World Health Organisation, says about 80 percent of public health infrastructure is dysfunctional, while insufficient funding, inadequate maintenance planning and a shortage of adequately trained personnel continue to affect the state of infrastructure and equipment.

The problem, therefore, is not necessarily that Nigeria does not buy medical equipment. It is whether the country is buying the right equipment, putting it in facilities capable of using it and keeping it functional long enough to justify the investment.

Chibuike’s experience in healthcare procurement has led him to believe that the problem often begins before a purchase order is signed.

“We sometimes focus on buying the machine without asking whether the facility is ready for it, who will operate it, who will maintain it, or whether spare parts and technical support will be available,” he said.

That distinction matters because medical equipment is not like an ordinary capital purchase. A CT scanner, MRI machine, ultrasound system, laboratory analyser or other specialised equipment requires electricity, trained personnel, consumables, calibration, maintenance and technical support.

Without those supporting systems, the value of the equipment can quickly decline.

The WHO has similarly emphasised that medical equipment maintenance requires proper inventory management, maintenance programmes and systems for tracking equipment throughout its useful life. Reliable electricity is also critical to the functioning of medical devices, with the WHO noting that only about half of hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa have reliable electricity access.

For Nigerian hospitals, that creates a difficult economic calculation.

A facility must not only ask whether it can afford to buy a machine. It must ask whether it can afford to operate it.

“One of the biggest mistakes I see is buying equipment as a capital purchase without thinking through the economics of actually using it,” Chibuike said.

A hospital may spend millions of naira on equipment but still lack a trained operator, reliable power, consumables or a maintenance plan. In such circumstances, the equipment becomes what Chibuike describes as “unproductive capital”.

His preferred question is therefore not simply, “Can we afford to buy this machine?” but, “Can this machine remain functional, generate clinical value and justify the investment over its useful life?”

That question becomes even more important as the cost of imported medical equipment rises.

Nigeria’s dependence on imported medical products and technologies leaves healthcare providers exposed to exchange-rate movements. When the naira weakens, the cost of equipment, spare parts and consumables can rise even when the specification of the equipment has not changed.

Chibuike said the impact eventually spreads across the healthcare system.

“Hospitals face higher capital and operating costs, governments pay more for public projects, insurers come under pressure, and some of the burden ultimately reaches the patient through higher service costs,” he said.

For patients, that can mean more than a higher hospital bill.

It can mean travelling to another city for a scan, waiting longer for diagnosis or paying for accommodation and transport because the facility closest to them does not have functioning equipment.

The consequences are particularly important in a country where access to specialised healthcare remains uneven. The AHOP health systems profile notes that tertiary healthcare facilities are concentrated more heavily in major urban centres and more developed regions, while gaps in infrastructure and workforce continue to constrain service delivery.

This is where Chibuike believes the economics of equipment procurement and the economics of healthcare delivery become inseparable.

A hospital considering an expensive machine, he argues, should begin with patient demand rather than the machine itself.

Patient volumes, disease patterns, referral trends, waiting times and the number of patients currently being sent elsewhere should form part of the decision. The hospital should also consider whether it has the specialists and supporting infrastructure required to use the equipment.

“The decision should start with patient demand and service gaps,” he said.

That approach could also help address another problem in Nigeria’s healthcare system: equipment that is technically available but poorly utilised.

A machine may be impressive on paper, but if patient numbers are too low, operating costs are too high or the hospital lacks the specialists required to use it, the investment may struggle to make economic sense.

For private hospitals, that calculation can be particularly unforgiving because equipment investments have to compete for limited capital alongside staffing, drugs, power, rent and other operating costs.

Public hospitals face a different set of pressures, including procurement procedures and public accountability, but Chibuike does not believe one model automatically produces better outcomes.

“What I believe the public sector can learn from private healthcare is stronger attention to utilisation, lifecycle cost and accountability for the asset after delivery,” he said.

“Private hospitals, on the other hand, can benefit from the more structured planning and documentation that formal procurement processes can provide.”

The bigger issue, he argues, is shifting away from treating equipment procurement as an event.

“Buying the equipment is only the beginning,” he said, pointing to installation, calibration, software support, preventive maintenance, spare parts and eventual replacement as costs that should be considered from the beginning.

“A machine that cannot be maintained is not really an asset; it can quickly become a liability.”

That philosophy is also changing the business opportunity around medical equipment.

Chibuike founded Healthhub Medical Nigeria Limited around the idea of combining equipment procurement with supplier relationships, installation, maintenance, biomedical engineering support and financing.

But the larger question for the company, and the sector, is whether healthcare providers are willing and able to pay for that broader model.

Financing is particularly important because many hospitals cannot easily fund expensive equipment from operating cash flow.

However, borrowing to acquire a machine creates another question: can the equipment generate enough clinical activity or revenue to justify the debt?

Chibuike said hospitals should examine expected utilisation, patient demand, service pricing, operating costs, maintenance expenses and the repayment period before taking on financing.

That turns medical equipment into an investment decision rather than simply a healthcare decision.

“If the equipment cannot support enough clinical activity to justify the commitment, then the financing does not make economic sense,” he said.

Healthhub is exploring financing arrangements in which hospitals can access equipment while spreading payments over time. Chibuike said the company’s role in such transactions includes bringing together the hospital, equipment, financing, insurance and technical support.

For the model to work at scale, however, the underlying economics have to be sound. Financing cannot solve the problem of a machine that has insufficient demand, lacks trained personnel or cannot be maintained.

That is why Chibuike’s own experience as a founder has shaped his view of growth.

He said one of his most difficult periods came during the early stage of building Healthhub, when the vision was clear but resources were limited.

“Building trust, attracting suppliers, serving customers and developing the business at the same time tested me personally as a founder,” he said.

The experience, he said, made him more disciplined about cash flow and more deliberate about partnerships.

“It also taught me that resilience in business is not just about enduring difficulty; it is about learning quickly, adjusting and continuing with clarity.”

That lesson appears to extend to how he measures the progress of the company.

For an early-stage business, not every important investment immediately appears as revenue. Supplier relationships, operational systems, customer trust and technical capacity may take months or years before they translate into financial returns.

“I have learned that not every important day in a company shows up immediately as revenue,” Chibuike said.

“I now measure progress in layers. Revenue matters, of course, but so do stronger partnerships, better customer experience, a more reliable supply network, improved execution and the number of problems we are becoming better equipped to solve.”

For him, that has meant learning to distinguish between activity and capability.

The same distinction applies to Nigeria’s healthcare system.

A country can count how many hospitals have been built or how much has been spent on equipment, but those figures do not necessarily tell patients whether a machine is working when they need it.

The WHO/AHOP profile notes that funding windows exist for healthcare infrastructure and equipment, including through the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, but says overall investment remains too low to maintain functionality. It also identifies mixed results from previous financing interventions and public-private arrangements.

For Chibuike, the ultimate test is therefore relatively simple.

A machine should not be considered a successful investment merely because it has been delivered to a hospital, it should be working.

And it should still be working years later.

“If I had to choose one change, it would be to move Nigeria from one-off equipment purchasing to a full lifecycle procurement system, where every machine is properly planned for, financed where necessary, properly insured, installed, maintained, and supported throughout its useful life,” he said.

That change, he believes, could have a direct effect on patients.

It could mean a pregnant woman getting an ultrasound closer to home rather than travelling for hours. It could mean a cancer patient getting a scan when it is needed instead of being told that the machine is down. It could mean families avoiding additional transport and accommodation costs simply because the nearest facility has functional equipment.

But his experience also points to a broader lesson for Nigeria’s healthcare economy: healthcare capacity is not created when a machine arrives. It is created when the machine can be used, maintained and kept working for the patients who need it.

Building that capacity will require more than procurement. It will require better planning, financing, technical skills, maintenance and accountability.

And for a founder who says building Healthhub has taught him resilience and humility, perhaps the hardest lesson is also the simplest: solving Nigeria’s healthcare infrastructure problem will not be achieved by buying more machines alone. It will depend on making the machines already bought, and the ones still to come, actually work.

Driven by Chibuike Umeh’s vision to improve access to quality healthcare infrastructure, Healthhub Medical Nigeria Limited is building what it aspires to become Africa’s largest healthcare infrastructure procurement marketplace and ecosystem.

Through Healthhub Marketplace, the company aims to revolutionize healthcare procurement by creating a trusted, seamless, and accessible platform where hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres, laboratories, healthcare institutions, and other stakeholders can conveniently source and procure medical equipment across all categories.

This initiative shows Chibuike’s commitment to bridging healthcare infrastructure gaps, simplifying medical equipment procurement, and strengthening healthcare delivery across Nigeria and Africa