By Neil Hartnell

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Doctors Hospital’s finance chief yesterday asserted that “earnings are still muted” despite first-half profits for its 2026 financial year surging by 28.8 percent as it moves to accelerate The Kidney Centre’s integration.

Dennis Deveaux, the BISX-listed healthcare provider’s chief financial officer, told Tribune Business that while it was always anticipated that short-term profitability would be impacted by the investments required for its expansion phase “we know we should be doing more”.

Speaking as Doctors Hospital unveiled a return to positive net income following 2025’s full-year $905,603 loss, with profits for the six months to end-July increasing from $2.738m to $3.527m year-over-year, he added that the company has “quite a bit of work to do” to complete outstanding projects and “bring them into play”.

Revealing that Doctors Hospital has just completed “a deep dive” into its $25m Grand Bahama hospital, which confirmed the investment is “within an acceptable level of our budget”, Mr Deveaux told this newspaper that the healthcare provider is already focusing on improved dividend yields and driving greater profitability to better reward shareholders for their patience during its expansion phase.

Declining to detail profit and dividend targets post-growth phase, he added that Doctors Hospital has “a clear line of sight” on what is required to achieve this - better collaboration with the Government, driving efficiencies and synergies to translate increased revenues into bottom line growth, lowering purchase costs and tackling “uncompensated care”.

Mr Deveaux acknowledged that the BISX-listed provider’s $46.503m trade receivables as at June, 30, 2025, represent “a material risk” but said progress is being made. This figure, listed as a net sum that does not include $19m in provisions for “doubtful accounts”, represents monies owed by individual patients, third-party insurers and the Government for medical services the company has rendered.

The Doctors Hospital chief financial officer, though, pointed out that it had cut the rate of increase in those provisions by around 50 percent during its 2025 financial year compared to the previous 12 months, dropping additions to this balance to $6.6m compared to $13.3m in 2024.

Noting that the healthcare provider has already delivered on its revenue growth pledges, with the $120m-plus top-line for 2025 around double that for pre-COVID levels, Mr Deveaux told Tribune Business: “We know that there’s a lot of good things we are doing, and we hope shareholders continue to trust us to make the right investment decisions for the long-term, but there clearly has to be a deposit on that.

“While we are not out of our growth phase yet, we had a decent first-half. We know we should be doing more. We still have a lot of projects that speak to our future, so earnings are still muted. But investors are looking at where the long-term trajectory is.

“We are thinking about dividend yields. During a growth phase dividend yields sometimes suffer. We’ll look at dividend yields and to finish the current pipeline project strongly… The Grand Bahama hospital, we had a deep dive to look at how that project’s going to do this week. It’s within an acceptable level of our budget, and and we are eyeing when we will announce the opening of its doors.

“We are quite optimistic about the future. We have quite a bit of work to do to bring projects into play, but the investor community has seen the results of these projects over the last two years. The first half has yielded a profit and it would be good if we can continue to do so.”

Doctors Hospital’s revenues for the 2025 first half increased by $3.331m or 5.5 percent year-over-year, growing to $64.328m compared to $60.997m for the year before. This was aided by $4.4m in net patient services revenues generated by the Kidney Centre, its latest acquisition, of which $2.2m was earned in the first quarter.

The Kidney Centre did not contribute to Doctors Hospital’s first quarter revenues in 2025 because the purchase was not completed until end-April in 2024. Mr Deveaux said the BISX-listed provider now plans to accelerate the former’s integration into its operation by making all the necessary investments this current financial year in anticipation of it becoming a strong profits contributor by 2027.

“The revenue development side of The Kidney Centre is basically informed by the patients that are signed. We know there are going to be short-term movements but we have no concern with that,” he added. “We have decided to make all the key investments to integrate their operations this year.

“Normally what we do with an acquisition in the first year is that we watch and observe what is going on. We talk about what integration means for the patients, what it means for staff, and how the repositioning will improve operations for them. We are thinking about that in the current year. We don’t expect a big net income contribution this current year, but it will be positioned for that to happen in 2027.”

Mr Deveaux said Doctors Hospital had fulfilled its revenue pledges to investors and shareholders, with a “top-line almost double pre-COVID levels. The next thing that has to follow is to drive efficiencies and profitability. We think that [revenues] is an important milestone that has been reached, and then it comes to squeezing out a profit.

“It’s not at the level that we want, but clearly it’s a step in the right direction,” Mr Deveaux said of the 2025 first half and first and second quarter profitability. “We’re executing our 2025 plan, which is wrapping up, and starting to think about what Doctors Hospital 2030 looks like.

“We have to do so in an environment where we deliver a level of profit and level of dividends to shareholders. That’s clearly a focus for us…. Clearly we believe there is more, and there should be more, returns to the bottom line. If you say what are the drivers, we have a clear line of sight on revenue.

“Revenues are about what services do Bahamians need, and to make it more accessible and affordable while retaining the quality of care. The key drivers of profitability are to collaborate with the Government, lessen the cost of uncompensated care and lowering the cost of procurement. We have a clear line of sight, and we’re going to push for returns to shareholders.”