Fortis Healthcare has said that COVID-19 pandemic led its occupancy in hospital business falling to 29 percent during April versus 66 percent in the year-ago period, impacting significantly the revenues, profitability and cash flows.

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The company's diagnostics business also witnessed 75 percent drop in volumes in April. Patients choose to postpone elective procedures while there was a significant drop in footfalls in the outpatients department (OPD). The inter-state and intra-state movement restrictions impacted both patients and healthcare workers. The complete shutdown of international travel resulted in the cancellation of planned surgeries of international patients. "But since the relaxation in lockdown restrictions in May, the company began to witness early signs of a gradual increase in occupancy and other operational trends which is quite encouraging," said the healthcare chain.

With a slew of cost-saving measures including voluntary salary reductions, optimisation of administrative and sales and marketing costs, deferment of capex along with judicious resource allocation, the company has been able to partly reduce the significant negative impact on business.

Fortis said it has a well-capitalised balance sheet and managed its liquidity position via cost efficiency initiatives, better working capital management and external funding. It does not expect any impact on its current ability to service debt and other financing arrangements or anticipate at present any disruptions in the supply chain or any impact on internal financial controls. "With the lockdown restrictions easing in early May, the company has begun to witness signs of gradual improvement in operations but will continue to see an impact on its financials through the course of the remaining April to June quarter till normalisation of business," said Fortis in regulatory filings at stock exchanges.

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