Investor further humiliated as govt intervenes in retiree village
MELBOURNE: An international investor has suffered more humiliation as a government intervenes in the management of a seniors housing community.
Summerland Seniors Village is the latest B.C. care home to be taken over by the health authorities due to inability of the owner Retirement Concepts to meet provincial care standards.
Health Minister Adrian Dix announced the latest takeover, promising to follow up with Retirement Concepts and its Chinese ownership over the recurring problem.
Selkirk Seniors Village in Victoria was had an administrator appointed by Island Health in December, and Nanaimo Seniors Village was taken over after a November report found staffing and management issues leading to neglect. Comox Seniors Village had an administrator appointed Sept. 30, 2019.
“I can’t tell you how disappointing this is,” Dix told reporters in Victoria Monday. “This is in some ways the ultimate step we can take to protect the interests of seniors and other residents of long-term care facilities. We take it extremely reluctantly and based on progressive actions by chief medical officers of health.”
It’s the second intervention for Summerland Seniors Village, which has 112 long-term care beds, 75 of which are publicly funded by Interior Health. An administrator was appointed for four months in 2013 when it was under different ownership.
Interior Health appointed one of its managers, Vanda Urban, who has worked in health care for 35 years, to take over Summerland Seniors Village.
With nearly a third of Retirement Concepts’ 1,641 publicly funded care beds now under public administration, Dix said the ministry will be following up with its management and its holding company, Anbang Insurance Group of China.
Anbang was given federal approval to take over Retirement Concepts in 2017. It was taken over by the Chinese government in February 2018 after the company’s founder was sentenced to 18 years in prison for fraud.
