RAFFLES Medical Group on Monday announced a net profit of S$65.9 million for the year ended Dec 31, 2020, up 9.3 per cent from S$60.3 million a year ago, following its involvement in various Covid-19-related projects. The group is now expecting a shift in focus from Covid-19 testing to the ongoing vaccine rollout.

 

Executive chairman Loo Choon Yong said in a media briefing on Monday that with Covid-19 testing capabilities stabilised, more effort will be put into the administration and dissemination of vaccines.

 

The group is involved in Singapore' s national vaccination drive, with four dedicated vaccination centres to date, with more expected to be set up across Singapore progressively. 

 

Covid-19 testing is expected to be reduced with routine testing mostly administered to individuals returning from overseas, said Dr Loo. Meanwhile, there has also been an uptick in the use of rapid testing, which is cheaper and quicker than polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing.

 

Revenue for the full year grew 8.8 per cent on year to S$568.2 million, from S$522 million in FY2019, mainly attributable to its healthcare and hospital services divisions which grew by 17.8 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively.

 

As such, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation rose 17.6 per cent to S$123.9 million for FY2020, from S$105.4 million a year earlier.

 

Raffles Medical' s directors have recommended a final dividend of two Singapore cents per share. Including the interim dividend of 0.5 cent per share paid in October 2020, this brings the total dividend payable for the year to 2.5 cents per share.

 

The group will not be providing a scrip dividend option this year.

 

In its results filing, Raffles Medical said its higher full-year revenue and net profit come even after it posted a 5.4 per cent revenue drop for the first half of FY2020, during which it " experienced the full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and circuit breaker" .

 

The group said this was because the government' s " timely support" had enabled it to retain all staff and redeploy them to roles such as air border screening, swabbing foreign workers and arriving air travellers, as well as caring for Covid-19 positive foreign workers at community isolation facilities.

 

Aside from introducing new services including Covid-19 PCR and serology testing, the group said it also cared for more acute patients under the Emergency Care Collaboration initiative with the Ministry of Health.

 

With the recovery of the Covid-19 situation and the lifting of lockdown measures in Singapore as well as the group' s overseas operations, Raffles Medical observed local patient loads gradually returning back to pre-pandemic levels in H2 of 2020.

 

However, foreign patients remain unable to seek treatment in Singapore due to ongoing travel restrictions. The group said it believes this situation is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. It nonetheless remains optimistic that operations across its network will " begin to return to normal" this year, though certain cities in which it operates may continue to be subjected to sporadic localised outbreaks and lockdowns from Covid-19.