Primary Health Care founder Edmund Bateman has passed away. Photo: Louise Kennerley
Primary Health Care founder Edmund Bateman has passed away after months battling an undisclosed illness.
“It is with great sadness that we advise that Dr Edmund Bateman, the founder and former managing director and chief executive officer of Primary Health Care Limited, passed away yesterday,” the company said on Monday.
Dr Bateman began a period of sick leave in September 2014.
The former GP stepped down from running the $2.1 billion medical centre, pathology, and radiology business in January, passing leadership of the group to former Qantas executive Peter Gregg.
“Obviously he is a titan in this area and we are all very sad to see him pass,” Mr Gregg said.
The first Primary medical centre was opened by Dr Bateman in the Sydney suburb of Brookvale in December 1986.
Primary now runs 71 medical centres, 168 diagnostic imaging sites, 98 pathology labs, and 1,992 pathology collection centres.
The Brookvale centre was an extension of Dr Bateman’s general practice and opened 24 hours, 365 days a year, to provide bulk-billed services.
Primary Health Care chairman Robert Ferguson said that Dr Bateman “took on the tall poppies” in the medical establishment.
“He was a GP that could see an opportunity. He started off with another GP running the business providing 24-hour medicine and they literally had a camp bed there with a buzzer and if somebody rang they’d get out of bed,” Mr Ferguson said.
“He loved being a GP [but] he was an entrepreneur as well as being a GP…In those days [the 1980s] the medical establishment was pretty haughty and wasn’t very customer friendly. It was a profession as distinct from a business. Edmund conceived that you could have quality medicine at a low price.”
Primary listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1998 with annual revenue of $12.41 million. For the year ended 30 June 2015 Primary reported revenue of $1.6 billion and after tax profit of $136.5 million.
Even as the business grew to become a major listed company, Dr Bateman continued seeing patients in his practices.
“For a long time while he was running Primary he still attended as a GP. The board had to have an arm wrestle with him to make him stop. He was a workaholic but it showed what a great doctor he was,” Mr Ferguson said.
Mr Ferguson’s involvement in payments start-up Tyro introduced him to Dr Bateman.
The GP was already aware of Mr Ferguson because of their shared passion for horses.
Over the past year Dr Bateman won the Golden Slipper with Vancouver and the Caulfield Guineas with Wandjina.
“He’s had a wonderful racing year but it was the last year of his life unfortunately,” Mr Ferguson said.
“You’re never ready for this. I was hoping Edmund would have a wonderful and long retirement and enjoy the fruits of his labors and all the horses he was going to breed.”
Dr Bateman’s horse trainers included legends Gai Waterhouse and Clarry Connors.
In 2013 Dr Bateman and his wife Belinda gave half of their Primary shares, then worth $76 million, to family and a charitable trust.
BRW estimated his net wealth, which includes investments and agricultural interests, at $420 million.
Dr Bateman’s two sons James and Henry are members of Primary’s executive team.
James runs the pathology and diagnostics division while Henry runs the medical centres division.