IHH Healthcare thriving in all regions
KUCHING: Analysts came away from IHH Healthcare Bhd’s (IHH) post-result briefing feeling upbeat, due to its timely expansion plans across its key markets.
This comes as the acquisition of Timberland Medical Centre in Kuching has been completed and will be consolidated to the group in March.
“IHH’s key emphasis for Malaysia will be strengthening its local presence, which will keep its nurse retention rate in check,” commented analysts with RHB Investment Bank Bhd (RHB Research).
“While nursing shortage concerns appear to have subsided, IHH Healthcare Singapore intends to review its remuneration package for its nursing staff following the recent public nurses retention scheme announced by the
Singapore Government.”
Meanwhile, IHH’s focus for Turkey is to expand its current regions in Europe – namely Bulgaria and Macedonia, Serbia and Netherlands – and to grow its foreign patient visits to Turkey to reduce the impact of
hyperinflation.
In recent policy developments in India, the Supreme Court of India, in a recent response to a public interest litigation filed by a non-profit organisation (NGO), has urged the government to establish a regulated fee structure for patients.
The ultimate objective of the NGO is to bring down the cost of healthcare in the private sector to the level of rates under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS).
“Given the complexity of implementing this (requires extensive consultation with various stakeholders) as well as the risk of jeopardising the quality of private healthcare in India, we are of the view that the standardised fee structure is unlikely take place in the near term, despite the Act being in place since 2012,” RHB Research said.
Looking at medical tourism, the division continues to see strong traction as evidenced by its robust foreign patient footfalls.
The medical tourism segments in IHH’s Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey, and India operations accounted for 21, six, 18 and seven per cent of revenues in 2023 vs pre-pandemic percentages of 25, five, 16 and 10 per cent respectively.