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“The situation for almost all other hospitals had been bad,” Siddique said.

This was the first time the country’s private healthcare sector, which had seen a burgeoning growth since the 1990s, suffered a blow.

Buoyed by the government’s patronisation and the growing income and health consciousness among the people, nearly 15,000 private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic facilities emerged in the medical care landscape over the last three decades to cater to growing demand.

No official estimate of the industry’s annual turnover is available.

However, AM Shamim, managing director of Labaid Group, one of the biggest private sector healthcare providers, earlier said the annual turnover would be $6 billion and the sector was growing at 25 per cent annually until the pandemic hit the country.

Today, private hospitals and clinics have 91,500 beds, which are nearly double that in public hospitals, said the Health Bulletin 2019.

In 2007, the number of private clinics and hospitals was 1,000, and they had 16,000 beds, just half the total beds in the public sector hospitals, showed official data.

Yesterday Shamim said industry turnover slumped roughly 35 per cent during the March-July period as doctors did not sit in the outpatient sections and patients preferred staying home instead of visiting hospitals.

“We saw a sharp fall in both outdoor and inpatients,” he said.

However, things started returning to the pre-Covid period since September. “We have started seeing a peak after September,” said Yousuf.

Shamim said the industry was likely to grow by 20 per cent next year as the Covid-19 also opened up opportunities for the private medical service providers to show their capacity, especially to those well-off people who used to travel abroad for treatment.

“We have been able to win the confidence of many,” said Yousuf.

Haroon said the pandemic halted the growth of the sector. “We will recover fully unless the second wave of the pandemic hits us,” he said.

Executives of the three hospitals said the sector has started rebounding since September and they expect the next year will be good one.