South African private hospital group Netcare has doubled its profit, after implementing measures to reduce costs due the pandemic. 

In a results statement on Monday it said it had issued a dividend on the back of the jump in full-year profit. 

Last year saw South African private hospital groups suffer financially due to the uncertainty of the pandemic. Netcare’s figures show that it had felt the financial impact of the pandemic since the first wave struck South Africa back in March 2020, as patients opted out of or postponed elective surgeries out of fear of contracting COVID-19.  

Patient numbers fell at the hospitals due to this fear, despite spikes in infections at certain times that filled up hospitals. 

The hospital group said it had managed ​​to reduce the length of stay for COVID-19 patients by evolving treatment regimens and effective bed allocation, thus getting back to some sort of normality.

Netcare is South Africa’s third-largest private hospital operator by market share. 

This year the hospital group managed to increase its revenue by 11.5% to ZAR21bn ($1.32bn) in the year to end-September, up from ZAR18.8bn. Its headline earnings per share jumped by 107.4% to ZAR0.67.4, up from ZAR0.33 in 2020.  

Netcare estimated that its COVID-19 related loss shrank from ZAR2.3bn in 2020 to ZAR1.5bn in the year ended 30 September 2021.     

​​While there was a substantial increase in COVID-19 admissions during the third wave in July, only 52% of beds were allocated to COVID-19 patients at the peak of that wave. That was down from 60% in the second wave last December and 80% in the first wave, Netcare said.

"In addition to absorbing lower activity levels throughout the pandemic, the group also incurred Covid-19 related costs of approximately R521 million in FY 2021,” said the group.

About 80% of the costs went towards equipping staff and patients with personal protective equipment.  After suspending its interim and final dividends in 2020, it has since reinstated the final dividend, with a payment of ZAR0.34.