Netcare offers glimpse into its superb response

Netcare’s trading statement on Tuesday gives a glimpse into how the private hospital group has handled the Covid-19 pandemic and especially how it reduced the number of days patients spent in intensive care.

It also shows the brilliance of SA’s health-care capability.

Netcare treated 11,913 Covid-19 patients with about 35%, or 4,169, needing intensive care.

The average length of time in Netcare intensive-care units for a Covid-19 patient dropped from 17 to six days.

Initially Covid-19 patients spent weeks in hospital, perhaps because some were sicker less was known of the disease |at the time and ventilators were used.

But SA professors such as Guy Richards and colleagues working in the state sector learnt as early as April not to use ventilators

Instead, they switched to high-flow nasal oxygen, a highpressure treatment given to patients lying on their stomachs, with greater success.

Richards, whose treatment advice influenced the private sector and garnered a mention in a recent Discovery Health presentation, started using steroid drugs long before headlines about drugs such as dexamethasone were broadcast to the world.

Of course, there are outliers. Some patients spend weeks on ventilators, but the chance of a very ill Covid-19 patient spending more than a week in hospital is now low, Netcare shows.

This is, of course, not the best news for hospital group revenue, but it is good news for South Africans.

Netcare also said in light of the treatment success and its expectations of the Covid-19 disease, it won’t allow any second-wave fears to stop access to other health care.

This has fallen by the wayside after other surgeries at the group dropped by 50% over six months.

INVESTEC PROPERTY FUND

Investec Property Fund (IPF) has spent the past four years changing its asset base so that it owns low income earning and less risky properties. But it still has some legacy assets which are giving it headaches.

The company’s management under former CEO Nick Riley and current co-CEOs Darryl Mayers and Andrew Wooler sold a number of SA assets including Musina Mall as well as Investec Australia Property Fund, which now looks |overpriced.

IPF then set up and invested in two Western Europe logistics portfolios, using the larger Investec group’s contact base. It also invested in UK assets.

Mayers says a big challenge for the fund will be to turn around its Johannesburg-based centres: The Firs multi-use centre in Rosebank, lifestyle centre Design Quarter in Fourways and Balfour Mall, in Balfour Park. These centres were hardest hit by the hard lockdown.

Mayers says The Firs has also been suffering because it lacks general food retailers such as Pick n Pay. He says IPF has a plan for the Design Quarter, but says this doesn’t necessarily mean the asset will be sold in the near future.

Balfour Park remains a wellknown legacy asset in the area which hasn’t seen basic infrastructure upgrades in years.

IPF ’ s dynamic CEO duo have shown an ability to reposition a fund with flair, but they aren’t quite finished yet.