Non-COVID segment facing shortage of beds, says Max Healthcare

Hospital chain Max Health on Friday said that non-COVID occupancies were getting back to levels prior to the pandemic. The total occupancy at its facilities—16 across the country with 3400 beds--is currently 80 percent.

Non-COVID occupancies, which had fallen to as low as 30-35 percent in March 2020 saw occupancies inch back up to 81 percent in September and 80 percent in October.

“The COVID, a few weeks back, was about 70-75 percent occupancy. We have seen a huge comeback of non-COVID – that was operating at 85 percent occupancy and that continues,” Abhay Soi, CMD of Max healthcare said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

“However, now on the COVID side, things are easing up but on the non-COVID side there is absolutely no availability of beds,” he said.

The company has a strong presence in North India with 8 hospitals and 4 medical centres in the Delhi-NCR region. It was formed by carving out Max India’s hospital business and merging it with KKR-backed Radiant.

The hospital has segregated COVID and Non COVID-19 treatment at its hospitals. It has around 1,200 beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients with one exclusive COVID-19 hospital in Delhi. Due to the pandemic, the company has seen a sharp rise in digital consultations. As of Q2FY21 the company had conducted around 11 percent of COVID-19 consultations digitally, with 70 percent of outpatient consulting currently on video according to Soi.

As for the COVID-19 vaccine, the company says they have the manpower and resources including network of 8,000 to 9,000 general practitioners to help in the inoculation drive.

“We do have the manpower and the resources to be able to inoculate a huge amount of people very quickly. So how this vaccine is going to be available to us, what is going to be the supply chain, what would be the replenishment policy - all of that would make a difference. Therefore, the bottlenecks would be at the backend and not perhaps at the frontend as far as this is concerned,” Soi said.

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