Private hospital expects return to profitability as costs cut

The chief executive of private facility Clane General Hospital in Co Kildare expects the hospital to return to profit this year.

Sean Leyden projected the facility would return to profit this year after confirming yesterday that it broke even in 2011.

This followed the hospital sustaining pre-tax losses of €777,955 in 2010, including non-cash depreciation costs of €553,865.

Mr Leyden attributed the return to break-even last year to cost-cutting and an increase in business at Clane Hospital’s fertility clinic.

A note attached to Clane General Hospital’s accounts states that the hospital successfully curbed expenditure last year through operating efficiencies and an agreed pay reduction at all levels of the organisation.

Mr Leyden said that the break-even position for last year resulted in the hospital recording earnings before interest, taxation and amortisation of €773,000

Mr Leyden ascribed the loss in 2010 “to the sudden and unprecedented general downturn in the economy, which was reflected in the reduction in the demand for cosmetic surgery”.

Clane General Hospital employs 110 staff, with annual staff costs of €4m, and last year recorded revenues of €8m.

The hospital was established in 1985 and is owned by 30 shareholders.

Clane General Hospital is one of three private centres in Ireland that fitted PIP breast implants to 1,500 Irish women. The defective implants have caused a global scare.

Mr Leyden said 235 women were fitted with PIP implants at the hospital. “All Clane Hospital patients have now had a scan and all defective implants replaced free of charge,” he said. “A total of 26 patients required replacement of defective implants.

“The breast implants used by Clane Hospital had CE certification and, contrary to some reports in the media and other sources, were not a cheaper implant,” Mr Leyden said.