Doctors Hospital is cautiously monitoring situations developing internationally to gauge how decisions made abroad will impact the country's private medical business -- a sector in critical need of revenue injections.  It comes as many business analysts await a vote by lawmakers on the U.S. debt ceiling compromise plan reached on Sunday, which prevents the U.S. from defaulting on its debt, a scenario which could have sent The Bahamas - and much of the world - into a double dip recession.

Doctors Hospital CEO Charles Sealy said the current economic climate has already sliced profits of many private practices around the country, as the public health care system is inundated with patients.  The hospital has seen net income decline by 83 percent during the 12 months ending January 2011.

"Health care is one of those things they put on the back burner and you only engage it if you really, really have to," he added.  "If you look at our financials and see last year compared to the year before, you would have seen a decline in activity at the institution, and we know that a lot of it is influenced by the economic climate and what is happening in our community.

"We need to see what's going to happen now with the political climate and how that's going to impact confidence in the market, but hopefully if we see international markets with more sustainability that's going to help us as well... so we are watching those indicators as well."
His statement follows reports by many private practices of customer declines, as hiking insurance premiums and co-payments coupled with job and coverage losses force many to use the more affordable public health care system.

While there has been some resurgence in patients returning to private care, Sealy said it is still off from pre-recession levels.  Feeling as if the recession has bottomed out, he said more Bahamians are choosing to use discretionary spending on their health.  That's been especially true with recent dengue fever fears.

"We've seen a spike most recently with regards to that," he added.  "But we've seen a steady increase [and] we believe we're moving in the direction where persons are now making decisions because they are a bit more comfortable.  "It's very minimal but it's in the right direction."

Last fiscal year, Doctors saw its lowest total patient days since 2004, with a total of 10,061.
"During the year we saw an increase in patients with decreased insurance benefits or a complete loss of insurance coverage, as employers struggled to cut costs and lay-offs increased," read the company's financials for fiscal 2011.  "The result was patients were unable to pay for increased deductibles and co-payments, and utilised the public health system."

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