Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (July 9): KPJ Healthcare Bhd, which saw its occupancy rate drop significantly during the Movement Control Order (MCO) as many chose to delay hospital visits for check-ups and surgeries, is confident the figure will recover as Malaysia resumes its economy in full swing.

KPJ's bed occupancy rate for its hospitals fell to its lowest of 27% in April at the peak of the MCO, before climbing to 31% in May.

"In Malaysia, private healthcare has not been spared from Covid-19. However, our view is that it remains positive in the medium to long term. As the demand for healthcare continues, patients will be returning to hospitals. Already we are seeing our occupancy rate coming back to 45% from the lows that we saw in April," said the private healthcare provider's recently appointed president and managing director, Ahmad Shahizam Mohd Shariff.

He was addressing a virtual press conference following the company's annual general meeting (AGM) earlier today. This was Ahmad Shahizam's first AGM following his appointment on July 1.

KPJ's net profit fell 1.52% to RM38.53 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020 (1QFY20) compared with RM39.13 million a year ago due to higher expenses and the impact from the gestation period of its new hospitals.

Ahmad Shahizam said 2QFY20 is expected to see a bigger earnings impact from the full month of MCO. "We are looking at a gradual recovery towards the end of the year and also in 2021, barring any major second wave of Covid-19," he said.

KPJ vice president, group finance and investor relations, Norhaizam Mohammad noted that given the global pandemic, the trend of patient numbers for KPJ is not expected to be the same this year.

She said the group hopes to double its current outpatient count to 2.2 million by the end of the year, from 1.1 million outpatients as of June.

"We are also targeting a minimum of 200,000 inpatients by year end. As of June, we had 118,000 inpatients," she said.
The group's expansion plans, both brownfield and greenfield have also been affected as a result of the temporary halt to construction work during the MCO period.

Under the group's existing greenfield projects to be launched are KPJ Damansara 2, KPJ Kuching and KPJ Kluang, with target completion to be by 2021, Ahmad Shahizam said.

Expansion projects are also underway for KPJ Puteri in Ipoh, KPJ Taiping and KPJ Penang.

"Whatever projects we had, we are continuing to get them completed or finalised. However some of the earlier projects that have yet to commence, those are now being reviewed again," he said.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Shahizam said one of his priorities on his agenda is to look into increasing the use of technology across the company and its hospitals.

"The Covid-19 pandemic has made us acutely aware of the fact that despite the advances that we have made technologically across the world, we are still vulnerable to something like a virus that we are not able to see. This to me provides a perfect background, given that there is now more awareness on the importance of healthcare, especially one that is affordable, effective and high quality.

"I will sit down with the board to see how we can drive KPJ's utilisation of technology to better improve our services to our patients. This will go across the board," he said.

Shares in KPJ have declined 13% this year. It ended at 82.5 sen yesterday, valuing the company at RM3.53 billion.

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