The new crown pneumonia has hit Hong Kong for three years and has severely damaged the private medical institutions in Hong Kong.
CUHK Hospital earlier applied to the Legislative Council for an extension of five years to March 2028 for the first repayment, and explained that due to the epidemic, it was unable to actively develop customer sources in the early stage of opening, and it was difficult to fulfill its promise in the absence of patients. Patient service.
Zhongda Hospital also pointed out that the new crown epidemic has had an extremely negative impact on the finances of Zhongda Hospital.
According to the report of Zhongda Hospital, if the original repayment schedule is followed, the cash flow forecast in the next ten years will be bad, and its cash balance will remain negative from 2023 to 2032, and it will reach a negative value of more than 2 billion yuan in 2027 The lowest position of , that is, if the CUHK Hospital does not receive government support, it will not be able to maintain its operation.
At the beginning of the establishment of Zhongda Hospital, it borrowed 4 billion yuan from the government to build the hospital. It was originally scheduled to start repayment in March this year. However, the Medical and Health Bureau applied to the Legislative Council for approval to adjust the loan arrangement and postpone the original loan arrangement for five years. , that is, the first repayment will be made in March 2028, and the repayment will be made in ten installments each year until March 2037. The interest receivable that is deferred will be replaced by public medical services provided by Zhongda Hospital during the 15-year period.
According to the document of the Health Affairs Committee of the Legislative Council, Zhongda Hospital failed to meet its service commitment in the first year of operation, and the compliance rate of the package fee requirement was only 20%, which was lower than 50% of its commitment; The compliance rates of surgical new cases were 96.8% and 93.9% respectively.
The document stated that due to the epidemic, CUHK Hospital was unable to actively develop customer sources at the initial stage of opening, and it was also difficult to fulfill its promise to provide services for the specified number of HA patients in the absence of patients.
The document also pointed out that according to the latest financial projections submitted by Zhongda Hospital to the government in November and December last year, if the original repayment schedule is followed, the cash flow forecast for the next ten years will be bad, and its cash balance will also be from 2023 to 2032 It will maintain a negative value in 2027, and it will reach the lowest level of more than RMB 2 billion in 2027. If the Zhongda Hospital does not receive government support, it will not be able to maintain its operation.
On the contrary, if Zhongda Hospital can postpone the first repayment for five years to March 2028, the cash balance of Zhongda Hospital is expected to remain positive from 2023.
In the next five years, the cash balance of CUHK Hospital will first drop from $578 million in 2023 to $289 million in 2025, and will start to rise in and after 2026, taking into account interest, taxes, depreciation and Amortized, it is expected to start recording profits in about 2027.
According to the document, as CUHK Hospital has been supporting the fight against COVID-19 and has participated in the Hospital Authority’s public-private partnership hospital referral program, the outbreak of COVID-19 and the reduction in private medical services are unexpected Therefore, the Medical and Health Bureau believes that there are reasons to help Zhongda Hospital through the difficult period, "Zhongda Hospital should be given the opportunity to continue to operate."
The bureau also pointed out that according to the requirements of the service contract, Zhongda Hospital is expanding the number of beds in stages to reach its full scale (516 beds) by 2027, so it is believed that the postponement arrangement can provide enough time for Zhongda Hospital , to realize its potential to generate additional income.
The Bureau emphasized that the five-year delay in obtaining interest will not be written off, but will be fully repaid to the public by Zhongda Hospital in the form of public medical services.
Calculated on the basis of the government fiscal reserve interest rate deposited with the Exchange Fund in 2022, the original interest receivable is estimated to be $1.129 billion, based on the daily hospitalization cost of general patients in public hospitals in 2022/23 and a discount rate of 4.75% per annum For calculation, the average cost is estimated to be 9,350 yuan during the 15-year period, which can be roughly equivalent to 120,749 inpatient days (approximately 23 inpatient beds will be continuously provided during the 15-year period).
The Bureau continued to point out that Zhongda Hospital needs to provide public medical services equivalent to 120,749 inpatient days in the next 15 years. More than 15 years, or according to the daily hospitalization cost of general patients in public hospitals at that time.
Zhongda Hospital revoked the designated isolation ward to receive new crown patients Hospital closed the new crown outpatient clinic Zhongda Hospital successively occurred drug accidents involving wrong anesthesia and wrong adjustment of chemotherapy infusion speed 24 beds of Zhongda Hospital received new crown patients The hospital network transferred to Zhongda Hospital, and now the baby incident has been disturbed. The Department of Health has received a report and found the MIRROR concert while breastfeeding︱Ah Feng was transferred to Zhongda Hospital for treatment. The HA certificate was stable when he left the hospital last week.
