The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Doctors Hospital is “zeroing in” on providing one million COVID-19 tests, it was revealed yesterday, with the majority of those provided to-date “key” to reviving the Bahamian economy.

Dennis Deveaux, Doctors Hospital’s chief financial officer, told the Abaco Business Outlook conference that all the evidence gathered by the BISX-listed healthcare provider showed that testing - combined with screening, contact tracing and other COVID-19 mitigation protocols - had worked to slow the deadly virus’ spread.

Suggesting that Doctors Hospital will eventually produce a research paper on the issue, he disclosed that those taking PCR or rapid antigen tests for work and corporate purposes had “significantly lower test positivity rates” of 0.44 percent. And, in contrast, positivity rates for persons being tested on an individual basis were three times’ higher.

Mr Deveaux added that the positivity rate for tourists and other visitors testing upon arrival in The Bahamas was even lower at 0.32 percent, which showed that this nation’s health protocols - which required persons to get tested before travelling - had worked.

“As of yesterday, Doctors Hospital had performed just under 700,000 COVID-19 tests, and is zeroing in on one million COVID-19 tests very shortly,” he disclosed. Some 609,175 of those tests have been the rapid antigen variety, and 85,627 were PCR tests.

Doctors Hospital’s financial chief revealed that “the largest reason for testing was for business requirements”, at 61 percent of corporate testing, and travel requirements at 34 percent of testing. As a result, the testing offered by the BISX-listed healthcare provider has been “key to the re-opening and revitalisation of the Bahamian economy”.

“We were able to conclude that testing works, and have been able to deliver this service at market-leading prices to the Bahamian public,” Mr Deveaux added.

It is unclear what will happen to Doctors Hospital’s COVID-19 testing services given the newly-elected Davis administration’s pledge to make this “free”, although that will likely result in Bahamian taxpayers picking up the tab as opposed to individuals and their employers.

Mr Deveaux, meanwhile, said COVID-19 is presently at its “peak level of surge” given that an average 61 patients have been hospitalised daily over the last 45 days as compared to 46 patients for the same period in 2020.

He added that Doctors Hospital had “continued to support the gap in terms of pandemic healthcare delivery”, as it has currently taken on 21 patients from the already over-burdened public healthcare system. Total public sector patient days currently stand at 4,159, with some 365 “unique patients” treated over an average length of stay of 8.1 days.

“We step in where critical services are needed,” Mr Deveaux said. “We recognise, given the fiscal condition of the country, that the Government of The Bahamas cannot do it all by itself.”

Recalling the financial impact at COVID-19’s start, when elective procedures and other normal activity at Doctors Hospital’s facilities declined, he noted that April 2020 revenues fell by 52.4 percent month-over-month, dropping from $6.268m in March last year to just $2.986m.

Labour costs as a percentage of revenues soared from 35.9 percent in January 2020 to 59.5 percent in March 2020, giving the healthcare provider a whole new appreciation for cash. Mr Deveaux said the strategies employed included expanding its credit facility with existing lenders, pursuing a non-bank facility with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and opening a US account.

The “stockpiling” of critical supplies, such as personal protection equipment (PPE), was also made a priority, and he said: “We decided to grow our cash. We do not, as a private company, have any source of funding other than what we generate from the organic business.

“In the aftermath of Dorian, we recognised that in any crisis of that magnitude, our fiscal resources are not measured by profit but cash to sustain the operation and payroll and support. It will be determined by how much cash we have to weather the storm.

Turning to Doctors Hospital’s plans for the northern Bahamas, Mr Deveaux revealed that its 30-bed hospital in Freeport’s First Commercial Centre is targeting a fall 2022 opening. It will likely include at least some of the space previously used by the Okyanos Centre for Regenerative Medicine, the stem cell therapy provider now in Supreme Court-supervised liquidation.

Revealing that Doctors Hospital also plans to open a clinic in Eight Mile Rock, the chief financial officer said the Freeport hospital also expects to cater to “complex cases” from elsewhere in The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean.

Asked if the new hospital will cater to medical tourism, Mr Deveaux replied: “The market for medical tourism is surgical procedures not approved in the US and Europe, and persons looking for less regulated jurisdictions to operate in.

“We continue to be mindful of those opportunities, but our core thrust is not so much medical tourism but the needs of the northern Bahamas, and that’s what we’re going to use to design and build this facility.”

Mr Deveaux also revealed that some 20 percent, or $6.051m, of the $30.67m paid out to Doctors Hospital staff for the 2021 financial year was in the form of benefits that include profit sharing. Regular wages accounted for $18.917m, or 62 percent, of the total payout, while wage premiums and physician compensation each accounted for 8 percent.