and taking that a step further leads to the RANZCO and AMA...

and taking that a step further leads to the RANZCO and AMA doorstep etc, who effectively work with the government in limiting ophthalmologist numbers so that power and income are retained in the hands of the few; only 30 odd new opthalmologist graduates last year, at a time when cararact surgery is the most common procedure, with huge public hospital waiting lists. There was a lengthy federal Senate study recently (See Federal Gov website, Senate Committee inquiries held) on registration processes in Australia for foreign doctors that ran for over a year and interviewed dozens of specialists, patients etc, which concluded the registration and approval processes were opaque, outdated and unreasonably restrictive beyond the need of maintaining 'appropriate standards'; you guessed right, the recommendations have been sent to the dustbin, effectively allowing the likes of opthalmologist specialists to maintain market and patient power privileges, forever diminishing the returns for VEI, even though shareholders are funding the equipment, staff salaries and taking on business risk. These things can only get resolved by legislative change; takes a long time and very difficult to counteract the power of vested interests in the sector, like RANZCO. Did your mum have any real say in which facility her treatment was performed? What controls exist over optometrist referrals and how are they managed to ensure real patient choice and process integrity is upheld?, etc etc.

Hence why VEI's surgery theatre income diversification and growth strategy needs immediate focus and a significant step up; they've been too slow in acting on it and the market is now punishing the stock. whack! Let's hope the half year report is not the same limited, mundane, uninformative stuff as last year's releases.

Unfortunately flipside to 'institutions buying up' is that when they head for the doors in a low liquidity stock to avoid further erosion in fund returns you get a really steep sell off that can have virtually no floor eg where would the price settle if say the likes of AMP, Dexia, NAB, the Boat Fund or Intelligent Investor Value Fund wanted to exit, all at once, let alone Primary, all of whom would now be hurting badly unless they've already sold.

Virtus Health, Smiles, Greencross and Vision Eye. Which remains the serial revenue and profit under performer and why?