The Covid-19 pandemic had a “brutal impact” on Santa Casa’s accounts, revealed Lisbon’s Misericórdia provider, Edmundo Martinho, in an interview with the program Conversation Capital, Antena 1 and Jornal de Negócios. Until now, the institution will have lost around 600 million euros in revenue from the sale of games, according to the estimates of the provider Edmundo Martinho – which represents a smash revenue in the order of 20% a 25%, compared to the same period in just over 6 months.
On the side of expense, as you would expect, there was a increase in the order of “20 to 30%”. In recent months, according to the provider, the institution has started to “provide food to about 4 thousand people” in part because those who attended day care centers have become at home. There has also been an increase in requests for financial support, notably from asylum seekers. On the other hand, Santa Casa placed “almost 150” elderly people “who were in hospitals with clinical discharge and no social discharge”, which represents “a tremendous financial effort”.
Regarding the game, being one of Santa Casa’s main sources of revenue, Edmundo Martinho anticipates difficult times: “We don’t even know if we will be able to recover, everything will depend on how we manage to reorganize. However, some recovery is already being felt ”.
“We had practically two months in which revenues from game sales approached zero because all points of sale were closed, cafes, tobacconists, and some remained open but with a very low degree of commercialization because people did not they went out, they were at home ”, he points out.
In the interview, Edmundo Martinho made it clear that this year, the results of Santa Casa “will be negative”, which can go up to 40 million euros. However, he stressed that the investments in progress will not be compromised, as is the case of the total acquisition of the Hospital da Cruz Vermelha, meet. That company needs a very strong recapitalization, according to our accounts, around 12 to 16 million euros ”.
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