Tag: Viren Shetty

Vaccination was never a business for us; non-COVID biz back to pre-pandemic levels: Narayana Health

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Revenues from COVID-19 vaccinations had shot up to as much as 12 percent of sales in Q1 for hospital companies but have now reduced with some hospitals having to even cancel vaccination orders.

While discussing this with CNBC-TV18, Viren Shetty, ED and Group COO of Narayana Health said, “Vaccination was never a business line for hospitals like ours.”

“We did what we had to do to take care of the needs of society. We ordered as many vaccines as required and we took care of it,” he said.

“We are tying up with NGOs, partnered with huge corporates to take vaccines out to the masses. We are going to the rural areas and vaccinating people at their homes,” he added.

Also Read: Australia recognises Covishield vaccine ahead of border opening

When asked if the non-COVID business is back to the pre-pandemic level, Shetty said, “We are absolutely back to the levels that we had seen pre-COVID. Operation theaters are full, ICUs are full, we have a large number of patients in the wards, it is very difficult to get a bed now, which is a good thing in a sense the normal business is back.”

“We barely have any occupancies in the COVID wards, there are one-two patients that do come, generally senior people or people with co-morbid conditions but not much,” he added.

There was an expectation that there would be a change in the business models for hospitals that there would be a shift towards the digital space for hospitals.

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In terms of a structural shift towards the digital space for hospitals which was observed during COVID-19 pandemic like digital consulting, Shetty said, “It has come down but that is only because physical OPDs have improved and certain doctors don’t have enough time to dedicate towards online patients. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t patients lining up, they absolutely are. So, we would hire doctors whose only jobs are to see patients online. It is not the desperate situation where people couldn’t leave their homes, couldn’t drive to the hospital, or were terrified of coming and visiting the doctor. That drove that initial spurt of online consultation. So, the behaviour is still there, the way we implement it will have to change.”

Also Read: Hospital stocks surge on earnings recovery; industry experts discuss business outlook going ahead

On Sputnik-V, he said, “Sputnik was one of the last drugs to get approved and to get into the market. There wasn’t a tremendous amount of enthusiasm from all corners, most people were happy with Covishield and Covaxin. So, we didn’t order as many to start with and it has two very interesting challenges – it has to be stored at a much colder temperature and the other problem was dose one and dose two are two different vaccines.”

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Aditya Khemka, Fund Manager at InCred AMC believes that the hospitals business is a very secular growth story and the business is highly profitable.

“We remain extremely constructive on hospitals as a space. We believe the Indian healthcare spend will grow at 15-18 percent over the next decade and hospitals being the largely privatized area will significantly benefit from this secular growth over the next decade,” he said.

For the entire discussion, watch the accompanying video.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

COVID-19 occupancies very less; prepared for any eventuality, says Narayana Health

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Viren Shetty, ED & Group COO at Narayana Health, said at present their COVID occupancies were barely anything and vaccinations continued as normal. In case of any eventuality, he said the infrastructure has been set up.

“We bought all the ventilators, we set apart all the COVID ICUs and should be in a position to take care of them. Right now, vaccinations continue as normal COVID occupancies are barely anything,” said Shetty.

He added that COVID is a concern in the sense that it has not been fully eliminated from the country. “But I would echo what all the other hospital groups are saying that patients are not really coming to the hospital. Those that come, come very early and they do get treated. Now, we know a lot more about how to treat these patients than we did before,” he said.

The overall COVID numbers, however, still remain stubbornly high. “We do not know if it would manifest itself in some kind of exponential growth curve and a wave shows up at some point in October, November,” Shetty said, adding that it was beyond the realm of their ability to plan for but they are prepared.

On Capex plans, he said, since COVID, it has taken a bit of a hold and there is a more modest plan. “We have around Rs 250 crore planned for this one year, but it will scale up. The fact is that a lot of our hospitals are in need of refurbishment, a lot of equipment to be upgraded, and a lot of capacity to be added in new specialties, specifically oncology,” he said.

The pandemic has taught that all hospitals are very short of critical care infrastructure and so over the next five years, Narayana group has an aggressive Capex plan on upgrading their existing infrastructure to be able to accommodate all kinds of critical care patients.

“We won’t look to add too much new bed capacity, we have sufficient headway within the existing infrastructure and there are about 50-100 beds that can be added, just to account for the differences in the allocation of how we count the beds,” he added.

For the entire interview, watch the accompanying video

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Narayana Health’s Viren Shetty expects third wave to be less severe than second wave

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Narayana Health posted Q4FY21 earnings. The company has clocked in a record-high profit, and margins have improved significantly to 17 percent. However, the management commentary remains quite cautious on near-term recovery. Viren Shetty, Executive Director and Group COO, Narayana Health, discussed the performance.

“We are working with a large number of corporates, buying huge numbers of ventilators and oxygen generators, while maintaining a huge stock of medicines and PPEs to prepare for any eventuality,” he said.

“We were still in the process of procuring a large number of ventilators and oxygen generators when the second wave of COVID-19 hit us. So now, we are not taking any chances,” he shared.

Shetty further opined, “All signs indicate that the third wave may not be as bad as the second wave, but so far COVID has continued to surprise us. Since the third wave is expected to impact children more, we are buying a lot of ventilators that have a paediatric setting to be able to treat both adults and children alike.”

In terms of capping of COVID rates, he said, “If you look at capping the rates as a philosophy, then it has very disturbing ramifications. If one person does it, it would get the sense that all the state governments may take this up. If the rates for everyone are capped, rich patients are paying less, poor patients are paying more and that is absolutely not a fair situation.”

In rural Karnataka, the hospitals are dealing with a huge number of COVID patients, it may still take a couple of more weeks for it to normalise, he mentioned.

“In West Bengal, the numbers are starting to fall. There are barely any new patients coming to us with COVID, and we are able to cure the existing patients too. June looks to be quite a positive month for us, but still very much a month in recovery. It is only from Q2 that we will start to see what non-COVID numbers start to look like,” he shared.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Expect Q4 to be a normal quarter, says Narayana Health’s Viren Shetty

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Narayana Health reported its Q3FY21 earnings. While revenue declined year-on-year (YoY), there has been a recovery in operations sequentially. Viren Shetty, executive director and Group COO, Narayana Health, discussed the numbers as well as shared his outlook on the business, going forward.

“As of December, all the hospitals in India have staged more or less a full recovery. COVID still remains anywhere from 5 percent to 8 percent of the revenue in December, that is a much declining trend. In fact, several of our hospitals don’t have any COVID patients in there at all,” he said.

“The domestic business has staged a strong recovery. International volumes are still struggling and we expect they will continue to be a problem because of the non-availability of flights and people’s reluctance to travel for healthcare. So we expect that Q4 may be the one normal quarter that we may have,” he said.

“Cardiac surgery, cardiology, orthopedics – that have a huge amount of the elective component – aren’t yet at 100 percent of where they were. They are closer to around 60-80 percent,” Shetty said.

He doesn’t expect the international business to recover anytime soon. “We are not anticipating that to recover anytime soon but it has been picked up a lot. Our outpatients are still quite low compared to where they were in normal times. It is still somewhere between 60-70 percent of where they are,” he said.

In terms of digital consultations, he said, “The peak of our digital consultation volumes was during the lockdown. Right now in a quarter, we do around 30,000 digital consultations. It is more of a supplement.”

For more, watch the video…

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Narayana Health welcomes Delhi reducing ICU bed reservations to 25%

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Delhi government has reduced intensive care unit (ICU) bed reservation to 25 percent for COVID-19 patients in private hospitals. Viren Shetty, Executive Director and Group COO of Narayana Health discussed this and more.

“From what used to be 50 percent is right now down to 25 percent and for hospitals that are less than 100 beds. They don’t need to reserve any beds for COVID-19 at all. This is a reflection on the fact that hospitals aren’t seeing that many COVID-19 patients. This is a very positive trend for us and we hope that this continues. COVID-19 is not a very big business for us,” he said.

Business is back to pre COVID-19 levels for most of the Narayana Health hospitals. “The run rate looks quite positive, barring any unforeseen circumstances or any new strain we do believe that the worst of COVID -19 is behind us,” he said.

“Our hospitals are running full right now. There are many more diseases in the country outside of COVID-19, a huge amount of heart diseases, oncology and so on and with the permission of the government, we have not kept those beds empty. They will be available should the need arise but in the meantime as long as the footfalls are there, we have to use it for the patients that are filling up our emergency rooms right now,” Shetty mentioned.

In terms of COVID-19 vaccination, he said, “This is something that should get complete by this week or early next week at most. We have seen some amount of resistance, not to getting vaccinated itself. We have certain senior doctors who believe that they can wait because they want to prioritise their colleagues, there are other doctors who have been infected prior and want to wait until the antibody resistance comes down and then get vaccinated. So it is not that our doctors or nurses do not want to get vaccinated, they just want to wait for it and put other people further ahead in the line.”

On the vaccine rollout, he said, “we have been speaking with as many people as we can to for the government to allow us to start procuring vaccines in large quantities direct from the manufacturer. We are in discussion with the Serum Institute and as and when the government gives the go-ahead, we will be placing the orders for millions of vials of vaccines that we want to start rolling out across the country.”

For full interview, watch the video.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

There is a legitimate need to expand testing of COVID-19, says Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar Shaw

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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With the coronavirus now spreading at an alarming rate, accredited private labs would be allowed to test for Covid-19. However, this has raised several questions regarding costs, sanitation, hygiene etc.

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairperson and managing director of Biocon; Viren Shetty, ED & group COO of Narayana Health and Naresh Trehan, CMD of Medanta in an interaction with CNBC-TV18 tried to clear some of the doubts.

Mazumdar Shaw said, “There is a legitimate need for expanding capacity of testing, which the government clearly recognises now. There is concern that if we don’t have some controls, things could run amok because there will be attempts to profiteer under this situation of panic. I also believe that we need to be very judicious about who is tested. I don’t think there is any need for everybody to be tested. So, from that point of view I think there is justification in what the government is concerned about. Having said that, I do believe that the private sector has to be a partner in this whole battle against this invisible enemy as it is often referred to.”

She further added, “We do have a large number of labs in the private sector which can test the Coronavirus and we need to put in place the capacity. Now as far as whether it is free or not, the understanding was if the government supplies the private sector with kits there is a possibility that some of the labs might be able to waive off their service charges and just do the test for free. By and large I think this whole question on whether free or not can be solved by maximum retail price (MRP) and also controlling it through prescription based diagnostic.”

“So peace can be the way forward. Government is willing to listen to whatever model the private sector comes up with,” she said.

Trehan said, “Most definitely we need to test wider and if the need be that the private labs need to be recruited – then definitely they should be. You can fix a price. If you do the exact costing of what it will take for the labs to collect the samples – one of the dangers that I have heard from the private labs is that if a large number of people are suspected to be Coronavirus, descent on their labs then they don’t have the capacity to deal with them. So the proposal is that they should pick up the samples from home in a viral transport medium, do the test and deliver the results. The real cost can be easily calculated. There are enough labs in this country who have the PCR and all the capabilities.”

He further added, “If we are all on the same platform, we have the same rules of the game the same cost price – I would go a little further – there are some people who will not be able to afford and who need it so every lab can volunteer 10 percent of the test or x number of test to do free, so that will help the people who are unable to afford it. So this is a time for us to put our heads together and in our CSR, we should be able to help or assist the people and the government in achieving the objective of trying to contain it.”

When asked how to prevent profiteering in such situation Shetty said, “In terms of profiteering at the time of panic there is nothing you can do to prevent that, but the fact is government has all the ability to fix the prices of the test and the other one is we are a free market. If you allow every private lab to do the test, some labs will decide they are five star labs, they will charge more for it, some labs will decide we will charge it at the budget and for those who can’t afford it they can go to the government labs anyway for the past two months the government labs have been doing it for free. The problem is we are very under testing our population, we are doing only 5 test per million people so we have to take a more aggressive response to this because this is a very aggressive disease.”

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow