The Tribune

• BISX-listed provider to add 69 beds in two years

• Soon to be ‘embedded’ in Lyford Cay, in Albany

• Baha Mar clinic ‘busiest’ on New Providence

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Doctors Hospital yesterday pledged it will slash The Bahamas’ 213-strong hospital bed shortage by almost one-third come 2025 through the opening of two new facilities.

Dennis Deveaux, the BISX-listed healthcare provider’s chief financial officer, told the Exuma Business Outlook conference it is aiming to add a total extra 69 beds over the next two years through the opening of its Grand Bahama hospital and its New Providence-based Harbourside facility.

“On a national level, when we look back at the challenge of sick patients needing hospital beds, we recognise, both through international organisations and our own analysis, which suggests that nationally the country is missing about 213 hospital beds,” he disclosed.

“Someone that is sick, and requires a hospital stay, whether it’s medical surge treatment, IMC treatment or all the way up to intensive care, there are about 213 beds missing in the national capacity for this country. We’ve committed over the next two years to deliver at least on 69 of those 213 beds.” That, if achieved, will reduce the bed shortage by more than 32 percent or just under one-third.

Besides the 25 beds that will become available once Doctors Hospital’s Grand Bahama hospital opens, Mr Deveaux added that the private healthcare provider “plans to commission a new hospital in New Providence that will add about 38 beds when it opens in February” next year. That is Harbourside which, once fully operational, was shown as adding a total 44 beds, thus bringing it up to 69.

The Doctors Hospital chief financial officer said the expansion of its Bahamas-wide healthcare network, and “aggressive” move into the out-patient care space via a series of clinics across the most populated islands, will give both tourists and investors confidence that they can quickly access quality care and treatment should the unthinkable happen.

“We recognise that there is a question that the guest and investor has. Should something happen to me while I’m in Exuma or the cays, and I want other options that is not the public hospital, where do I go?” Mr Deveaux said. 

“Should something happen we want to answer that question. That Doctors Hospital, as the provider of the network of healthcare delivery on this island, that we stand ready to lend you confidence. I think that capacity and confidence will ultimately extend to the resort [Sandals Emerald Bay] then, and capacity and confidence will ultimately extend to The Bahamas.”

He added that the BISX-listed healthcare provider was seeking “to project the capacity” to deal with all medical emergencies that may arise in The Bahamas. And Doctors Hospital was now moving to “physically embed” itself in some of New Providence’s most upscale, wealthiest communities.

“For New Providence, we’ve put in a couple of models that do this,” Mr Deveaux said. “We’re embedded in Albany, and are soon to be embedded in Lyford Cay. Our busiest clinic in New Providence is on the bottom floor of Baha Mar, where we sometimes manage 30 patients a day and eight hospital transfers to the emergency room.” 

Mr Deveaux explained that Doctor Hospital is in the process of transforming its business model from one that was historically focused solely on tertiary and in-patient care, with its two hospitals and 72 beds frequently “stretched to capacity” by having to treat 40-45 patients at any one time.

“We have embarked on a journey that will see Doctors Hospital Health Systems grow to over 180 beds and that this system, which traditionally has been thought of as primarily in-patient focused, will have more than 10 out-patient facilities spread throughout the length and breadth of The Bahamas.”

The Doctors Hospital finance chief said that with a further “three executions planned for 2025, the healthcare provider’s total network could eventually extend to as many as 20 separate hospitals, clinics and other care locations.

“Prior to COVID, Doctors Hospital was an organisation that generated on average $5m of revenue per month and, subsequent to that, five years later we have doubled in size,” Mr Deveaux said, referring to the company’s ambition to grow its top-line revenues to $120m per year or $10m per month.

“Last year we spent [invested] over $6.5m. Five million dollars of that was on a new electronic health records system. What it allows us to do, if you have been to Doctors Hospital before, you have a medical record now and we can pull up anything that happened to you in earlier visits with us.

“We can create a unique record of individuals: What laboratory tests were ordered, what were the results. What referrals were made, and did you follow up?” Dr Charles Diggiss, Doctors Hospital’s president and chief executive, confirmed the BISX-listed healthcare provider’s expansion plans in its recently-released annual report for the year to end-January 2023.

“Market entry into Georgetown, Exuma is imminent. We anticipate that the Doctors Hospital Exuma clinic will be open and ready to accept patients by the 2024 fiscal year’s second quarter [closed at end-July], while Doctors Hospitak Harbourside is expected to be available to accept patients by the 2024 fiscal year’s fourth quarter,” Dr Diggiss wrote.

“We are in the process of formalising an arrangement of co-operation for services provision with the Royal Bahamas Police Force control room. Our own centralised control room model, featuring a real time emergency operations centre/real time technical operations centre, will be housed at the renovated repurposed Samuel Evans building on Shirley Street.”

This, Dr Diggiss added, would remove Doctors Hospital Health Systems (DHHS) centralised communications from the hospital proper into a more efficient centralised location, allowing for redundancy in regard to data access and power. This is expected to come to fruition by the 2023 fourth quarter.

“This is an example of our commitment during fiscal year 2023 to create optimal patient care spaces within Doctors Hospital east and to move indirect care providers and other support services to contiguous and nearby locations.”