Scotia, MAJ enter J$2b partnership
Published:Wednesday | June 8, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Avia Collinder, Business Writer
Scotiabank Jamaica has struck a five-year partnership with doctors, a deal conservatively estimated by bank sources to be worth between J$1.5 billion to J$2 billion.
The agreement allows the Medical Association of Jamaica's 2,000 members to get "preferential rates" for business-development loans, mortgages, and tutoring in business management through the bank's small- and medium-size business unit.
On Friday, Scotiabank vice-president for small and medium enterprises, Patsy Latchman-Atterbury, said the practitioners will be getting a preferential 12.95 per cent per annum rate for business-related loans and 11.95 per cent for mortgages.
She said doctors who request the service will be introduced to QuickBooks 101, an accounting programme that produces monthly profit and loss statements and provides management information.
"We are trying to make the business of medicine into well run practices as well as real business," said Latchman-Atterbury.
The initiative is part of a broader five-point agreement which provides the MAJ and its 22 sub-groups of practitioner with business-management solutions as well as solutions in financial security, wealth management, insurance and mortgages up to 2016.
Dr Shane Alexis, president of the Jamaica Medical Doctor's Association, said Friday that the deal, which spoke both to national health care and individual practitioner needs, would allow for upgrade of practices through reorganisation and equipment purchase.
"Operating beds cost in the region of US$25,000 each. Echocardiograms range in price from U$$80,000 to US$100,000," said Alexis.
"Individual practitioner needs may range from a few hundred thousand Jamaican dollars to hundreds of millions," he told Wednesday Business.
All members, he said, were likely to use the services offered with needs varying according to whether they worked in a group or were sole practitioners.
"We are committed to providing quality health care and we will make the investment necessary," said the doctors' spokesman.
He said he was convinced that clients would be willing to pay for the upgraded services provided.
"Jamaicans take their health care seriously. Usually, they will make all efforts to ensure that they get the care they need," said Alexis.
Any industry upgrade, he said, would redound to the benefit of the public, which spends J$5 billion to J$6 billion on chronic illnesses and non-communicable diseases annually.
The five-year plan will culminate in the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the MAJ in 2016.