Excess mortality: Dialysis company FMC cuts 5,000 jobs because patients with Covid

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Claudio Furlan / dpa

The corona crisis has massive consequences for the dialysis company Fresenius Medical Care (FMC): Due to the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, more FMC dialysis patients are dying from Covid-19.

"This resulted in a significantly stronger Covid-19 effect on our business than we had forecast at the beginning of the year," said FMC boss Rice Powell when presenting the quarterly balance sheet.

Rice spoke of an unprecedented situation that continues to cost many lives every day.

The subsidiary of the health care company Fresenius is now to be made weatherproof with a simpler operating model, which should significantly reduce costs.

Around 5000 of the more than 125,000 jobs will be lost worldwide.

Where the positions are to be deleted and how many of them may be in Germany has not yet been determined, Powell told Reuters.

“We're working on that.” In future, FMC wants to focus its operating model on just two global segments.

The previously decentralized business with products for dialysis centers, home dialysis and intensive care medicine will be bundled in one.

The other segment comprises the health services business, which accounts for around 80 percent of Group sales.

The group has been feeling the consequences of the corona pandemic for a long time.

It affects business, because dialysis patients in particular are more susceptible to Covid-19.

However, the excess mortality rates in these patients had decreased significantly in the second quarter thanks to the ongoing vaccination campaigns.

But that changed again in the third quarter thanks to Delta.

Mostly unvaccinated dialysis patients are affected, Powell said.

According to company figures, 2,700 more patients died than statistically expected in the third quarter alone.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, excess mortality has been around 18,200 patients.

One observes a "significantly increased patient excess mortality due to the global spread of the delta variant".

FMC had actually expected normalization in the second half of the year and is now assuming that excess mortality will decline in the fourth quarter.

Powell is hoping for a further increase in vaccination rates, booster vaccinations before winter and the expected vaccinations for children.

However, the effects of excess mortality among dialysis patients should still be felt by FMC by the third quarter of next year.

The group wants to reduce its annual costs by half a billion euros by 2025.

However, one-off investments of around 450 to 500 million are also required for this.

Net savings are expected for the first time in 2023.

Fresenius had already announced that it would subject the FMC operating model to a comprehensive review and publish the details in the autumn.

The plans were well received on the stock exchange, with the shares of FMC and Fresenius, both of which are listed in the Dax, among the biggest winners there.

mic / Reuters