Life Healthc GRP HLDGS (JSE: LHC)

11.54 now, down again. Eish.

R11.54 now, down a bit today.

Down 2.2% today, eish. R11.54 now.

LHC's been stuck between R11 and R12 for ages, which tells you the market isn't convinced the hospital business is growing much. I'll believe it when I see actual patient volumes and pricing power improve, not just cost cuts.

Load-shedding is hurting the hospitals, that's the real drag here. Once things settle on the power side, the bed occupancy should pick up again.

Life's been getting hammered because people are putting off non-urgent hospital visits when they're broke, and that's their bread and butter. Even with load-shedding hitting the hospitals themselves, demand is just softer than it used to be.

Life basically runs private hospitals across SA, so when the economy gets tight people skip elective surgery and go to state hospitals instead. Not exactly a growth story when everyone's cutting back on medical aid.

Eish, load-shedding hit us again this morning, lost half the day's charts.

LHC's basically running private hospitals across SA, so when load-shedding hits or the economy gets tight, people put off the expensive stuff. Not really seeing the bounce back yet.

Holding through this. Life's got a decent spread of hospitals across the country and they're still treating patients through load-shedding and everything else, so the earnings aren't going to vanish overnight. Seems to mirror how Mediclinic struggled a few years back before people remembered they were actually essential infrastructure.

stage 6 hit joburg at 2pm and i lost my whole afternoon, eish

11.89 now, nice green day

R11.89, green day for the patient money

so if load-shedding scares people away, how does LHC make money back from that?

@swordfish_sa but half their patients come from medical aid schemes, not out of pocket. does that change it?

Been holding LHC for a bit but getting tired of it honestly. Private hospitals need paying patients and load-shedding keeps scaring folk away from elective surgery, so the money just isn't flowing like it should.

life's been around forever but theyre fighting the same thing every hospital fights, which is people have less money so theyre going private less often. last set of numbers didnt exactly jump off the page.

@dividend_mum_ayesha exactly, that's the whole point. Patience.

Do you think the private hospital bed occupancy numbers matter more than the actual earnings at this point? Feels like we're waiting to see if patients are actually coming back through the doors.

so a dividend is money back, but do I pay tax on that in my tax free account?