The Tribune

• Provider to ‘flex’ workforce after US decision

• ‘Several hundred jobs’ likely to go sector-wide

• Testing sites shuttered, lay-offs already begun

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Doctors Hospital yesterday confirmed it will adjust its COVID testing workforce to “match” the anticipated demand fall-off after generating “north of $50m” in revenues from 1.3m such screenings over the past two years.

Dennis Deveaux, the BISX-listed healthcare provider’s chief financial officer, told Tribune Business that apart from its Winton site, which was dismantled and removed within 24 hours last week, it intends to maintain all other COVID-related infrastructure despite the US eliminating the requirement for all international travellers to present a negative test upon entry.

Medical industry sources over the weekend estimated that “several hundred jobs” will be eliminated by the US move, which means that returning American tourists as well as Bahamians heading north will no longer need to test within 24 hours of departure. Testing staff at other providers received notice their services are no longer required with effect from Friday, with the sector shrinking almost as rapidly as it emerged two years ago.

Mr Deveaux, though, said Doctors Hospital had already been realigning its COVID testing staff in anticipation of the US move. He explained that none of the healthcare provider’s full-time staff will be impacted as the testing workforce featured mainly contract employees, and the impact on them would likely be minimised because they work other jobs or are full-time nursing and medical students.

The financial chief added that while some of its COVID testing infrastructure, such as the separate sites at Baha Mar’s three hotels, may be “consolidated” due to the US decision, it will not be completely eliminated because the need for such screening will remain locally due to continued infections and workplace testing.

While declining to provide a precise figure because Doctors Hospital’s latest full-year financial results have yet to be disclosed, Mr Deveaux told this newspaper: “I could say fairly confidently that our COVID testing business would have done north of 1.3m tests, rapid antigen and PCR. And we’d have done revenues north of $50m over the two years.

“It’s been an important capacity for the country. The 1.3m tests is not an insignificant number. It’s more than three times’ the population of The Bahamas, and a large chunk of that - probably north of 50 percent - has been tourists trying to home or Bahamians travelling abroad.

“We look at it as a critical part of why the Bahamian economy successfully re-opened, and it was a service we were happy to provide in addition to the local laboratories that supported us in providing capacity. I think overwhelmingly Bahamians have expressed great satisfaction with the service, and we also have price leadership.”

Mr Deveaux said Doctors Hospital had “clearly anticipated there was likely to be a decline” in COVID testing demand from both Bahamians and tourists, given that the US was always going to eventually relax its entrance protocols,but “with the exception of the changes we have made at Winton we expect to keep all of our remaining infrastructure for the most part”.

“We will clearly match our resources in terms of staffing with the level of activity from the public,” he added. “We don’t expect to idle away any of our other operations. Our biggest operations are at Baha Mar. We are consolidating our infrastructure. Traditionally we have had three sites at Baha Mar, one for each hotel, and we’ll be discussing with management how we go about that.”

However, given that COVID remains a threat both in The Bahamas and globally, with 46 new cases recorded in this nation on Friday and some 28 persons “moderately ill” in hospital, Mr Deveaux argued that when it came to testing for the virus “we don’t expect it to go away”.

During peak COVID-19 infection surges, when test numbers hit 100,000 per month, Doctors Hospital had more than 270 persons employed to collect samples and analyse the results. He confirmed that Doctors Hospital will “flex our contract workforce to match that demand”, which will involve not renewing contracts as they expire, given the reduction in testing need due to the Biden administration’s long-anticipated move.

Pointing out that Doctors Hospital’s Meldon Plaza site in Palmdale was accommodating the testing demand previously catered to by Winton, Mr Deveaux said all other test sites will remain open. He added that persons could use them for services other than COVID-19 tests, including urine and blood tests, laboratory work and picking up and paying for prescriptions. “That’s a good projection of our capacity,” the chief financial officer said.

The US move, though, has been felt already by staff at other medical providers offering COVID tests. One impacted employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had been informed as early as Friday that their role had been made redundant. They had been told to lock-up the testing site, ensure all items and records were preserved, and hand in the keys.

Tribune Business sources said COVID testing stations at Jet Aviation and Odyssey Aviation, Nassau’s private aviation fixed base operators (FBOs), have been closed as well as a site at Sandals Royal Bahamian. A testing provider, speaking on condition of anonymity, said around 30 employees had been impacted and they were scaling back to just one COVID testing location to assess how it will perform this week.

With COVID testing revenues effectively falling off a cliff, and slashed drastically, due to the Biden administration’s move, the provider added: “The numbers add up pretty quickly. I would definitely say it’s several hundred people whose jobs have definitely been affected. There’s no doubt about it. It’s not only the tests; it’s the administrators as well.

“Some people were set up to do COVID testing. That’s all they do. Their entire operation is completely based around the COVID model of testing. This was to be expected. I saw the writing on the wall and we were preparing ourselves for what we need to do. I was reducing testing inventory, in the last month buying only what we needed as opposed to pre-bulk. Recognising what was coming up, I only ordered what was needed.”

The source said that, at the peak of COVID surges, they were conducting some 500 tests per week. Meanwhile, Bonnie Culmer, chief executive/laboratory administrator at Bonaventure Medical Laboratory, told Tribune Business that while the reduction in test demand would impact her business and all other laboratories, staffing levels would not be impacted as the workers involved are all integrated into other areas of the business.

“It is going to impact the labs if the test is not required, as that is going to put us out of a lot of revenue we’d get from the rapid antigen test,” she said. “It’s a good thing if this means that COVID-19 is starting to slow down, but from where we sit we have a lot more positive cases in-country. We are seeing more positive cases in-country, but there is no more antigen test to fly.”

Ms Culmer urged Bahamians to “keep your guard up”, as COVID-19 has not gone away, and added that the need for testing would remain locally.