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Samantha Chigogo Herald Correspondent
Premier Service Medical Investments (PSMI) has disbanded its 13 subsidiaries, which will now operate under the parent company in four divisions, in a move meant to prevent the ballooning of debts and save at least $2 million per month.

The four new divisions for the firm are hospitals division, healthcare division, retail division and diagnostics division.

Premier Service Clinical Laboratories and Premier Service Radiology will now be under the diagnostics division, Premier Service Dentals Clinics, Premier Service Medical Healthcare and Premier Rehabilitation Service under the healthcare division, while Premier Optometry Services and Premier Service Pharmaceuticals will be under the retail division

Premier Service West End Hospitals, Premier Service Shashi Hospital, Premier Service Hillside Hospital, Premier Service Chiredzi Hospital, Parkview Haemodialysis which is part of Parkview Hospital and EMRAS Ambulances will be under the hospitals division.

“Premier Service Medical Investments (PSMI) was previously operating with 13 companies, which resulted in operational and service inefficiencies manifesting as high cost structures and failure to optimise on internal synergies,” said PSMI director corporate services Mr Victor Chaipa in a statement yesterday.

“These inefficiencies impacted negatively on the organisation’s operations. PSMI wishes to inform its stakeholders and members of the public that it is undergoing organisational and processes redesign, which resulted in the merging of its 13 companies into one company with divisions under it.”

Mr Chaipa revealed that the processes would also result in a reduction of operational costs and save the company millions.

“It is anticipated that the realigning and re-organisation of PSMI will save the company more than $2 million monthly and these resources will be channelled towards improving service to the patients,” he said.

Mr Chaipa said the restructuring exercise would ensure that exorbitant salaries were cut across the board to reduce the organisation’s wage bill.

“During the re-organisation process and to achieve maximum benefit, PSMI decided to restructure salaries for all employees, including management and all legal processes were followed,” he said.

“The works council, which represents both management and general staff, agreed to the exercise and fully endorsed the salary restructuring process as a way to preserve jobs and improve our cash flows.”

Mr Chaipa bemoaned failure by its medical funders to pay providers in time.

“It should be noted that medical funders are failing to pay providers on time, so, cash flows have gone down by more than 50 percent, resulting in the company streamlining all cost structures to align with the obtaining cash flow trends,” he said.

“In the same vein, PSMI has instituted other measures to improve cash flows, including introducing a marginal co-payment to members of medical funders defaulting on payments to PSMI.”

“This will result in improvement in service by way of making sure drugs and consumables are available at all times. These measures and the restructuring exercise have been put in place to make sure PSMI does not retrench workers, like what most companies in the country have and continue to do.”

Mr Chaipa said patients should expect a huge and sustainable improvement in service provision, which would compare favourably with other private sector healthcare service providers in the country.

PSMI is a subsidiary of Premier Service Medical Aid Society, which is putting its house in order after alleged mismanagement by previous managers.