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Poland

 

Interview: Attila Vegh, CEO, Penta Hospitals Group

By 2025 Penta Hospitals Group (PHG) owned by private equity house Penta Investments, plans to more than triple sales to over €1bn. But growth could be even faster, says its new CEO, Attila Vegh, a former boss of three large English NHS hospital trusts. The real ambition of the group, a merger of Svet Zdravia in Slovakia, the Polish chain EMC and Penta’s hospitals in Czech Republic, is even greater than the sales forecasts suggest. Much of the growth he says will come from working with the public sector. Vegh says that Penta wants to be “a disrupter, a company which introduces best practice and innovation,” thus persuading public payors to rethink their attitude to the private sector. So how do you do that in a region which is becoming increasingly statist and hostile to international capitalism?

FREE BLOG A brave move

It is not often you come across private equity prepared to put serious money into building hospitals where 99% of the patients will be paid for by a public payor. The risks are high. So why is Penta Investments preparing to build a Pan-East European hospital chain with projected sales of at least €1bn by 2025?

Further tariff cuts in Poland making forward planning “difficult”

Stroke treatment is likely to become the latest area of medicine to suffer tariff reductions in Poland according to our information. Cuts of over 10%, following similar reductions to cardiology in the summer, are unlikely to have major impacts but symbolise the worsening business environment for private operators.

Profits – and share price – fall at Life Healthcare

Shares in the South African group Life Healthcare were flat this morning, after falling last Friday following news of an 11.6% fall in after-tax profit in FY 2016 results. Margins fell to 27.5% in Southern Africa and 10.2% in Poland as the rand depreciated and the Polish government cut cardiac tariffs by 17.4% this year. Operating performance, however, was largely strong, contributing to a 12% increase in sales to R16.4bn (US$1.14bn) and 6.6% in EBITDA to R4.3bn (US$0.3bn).

FREE BLOG Can PPPs stay afloat when facing a wave of public spending cuts?

Free healthcare is drowning under the recent wave of public spending cuts in Europe. Prospects for improvement in some countries seem slim – particularly when faced with an ageing population of increasingly chronically ill citizens. Is there a solution? Could management by the private sector or outright privatisation provide the magic solution that will introduce gains in efficiency […]

Polish plans for NHS concern healthcare experts

Poland's Law and Justice government is radically reforming the country's healthcare system. It has already removed a mechanism driving the privatisation of state hospitals. Now, a sequence of bills is being prepared that will reform primary care, bring in an NHS style system and create a national hospital network with access to state funds. We investigate.

Medicover buys in Romania

Pan-European corporate healthcare provider Medicover is entering Pitesti, Romania, after buying a majority stake in a local operator.

Polish healthcare reform – PiS takes its time

Poland’s government has announced further plans for reform to its health system. Numerous stakeholders are criticising the health minister, Konstanty Radziwill, over the health budget, tariffs and burden sharing between the central government and the regions.

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