The news broke in the Globe late last month. Seniors living in 21 units in the Vancouver residential care home Terraces at 7th got eviction notices. The notices came while we were still digesting the second scathing annual report from B.C.’s seniors advocate on the deteriorating state of seniors care homes in the province.
From 2015 to 2016, “average and median wait times for residential care grew longer in three of five regional health authorities. The proportion of residents admitted to residential care within 30 days decreased by 11 per cent from the previous year. The number of residential care beds has increased 3.5 per cent since 2012, while seniors aged 85 and older have increased 21 per cent over the same time period.” And that is even before the mass of the baby boomers are in need of that type of support.
All of this popped up while the province’s political parties were setting up for next month’s provincial election.
Premier Christy Clark intends to run on the 16-year record of the Liberals in power in B.C. And arguably, as a result of Liberal legislative and funding decisions during that time, the situation for seniors has only gotten worse.
The tenants being pushed out at Terraces on 7th were having their rent subsidized by the B.C. government’s Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCH). The eviction notices were completely legal under the terms of agreement between the owners, Retirement Concepts and VCH.
Retirement Concepts, owned by the Jamal family, is the biggest family retirement home business in the province. They have or had more than 20 facilities. Postmedia reported that last year they were awarded $86 million in provincial health ministry contracts. And, by the way, the family, through its various companies and personally, has donated $70,000 to Christy Clark and her party.
The owners said the evictions were for “business reasons.” They wanted to replace those who they were giving the hook with seniors who could pay the full freight on their own.
What with the proximity of a provincial election and the recent sale of most of the Jamal family’s diverse holdings — $1 billion — to a multi-billion dollar Chinese insurance company, and with media and opposition politicians zeroing in on this callous activity, Retirement Concepts backed off.
But looking back at the past 16 years of Liberal rule, three things should come as no surprise: The relative decline in the number of publicly owned care homes, the rise of for-profit private-sector homes and the decline in the quality of care with a stunning 82 per cent of homes failing to meet “provincial standards.”
For starters, the province simply stopped providing capital to health authorities to build public care homes. The seniors advocate’s report notes that since 2012, while the number of subsidized assisted-living units hasn’t changed, privately owned units have increased by 29 per cent.
How did that happen? Well, in 2002, the same day Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell brought in legislation to tear up the teachers’ contract, he introduced legislation ironically titled the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act. It would gut the contracts of folks working in care homes. More than 9,000 workers — almost all women, and many of them immigrants, were laid off. It was the biggest layoff in the province’s history. (It took five years until the Supreme Court of Canada decided to restore some of those rights and order an $85-million settlement). Bill 94, introduced in 2003, eliminated succession rights. It allowed care home owners to “contract flip.” They could make a deal with a subcontractor to provide services and, at the end of that contract, switch subcontractors and not take on the burden of any wage or benefit increases won by workers employed by the first subcontractor.
Contractors cut costs and quality declined.
Now, as the election writ is dropped, in typical cynical Christy style, she threw $500 million at the problem to bring up the standards in seniors care homes. The money is welcomed by all concerned. Better late than never. It will be doled out over four years, a full election cycle. But whether it will be enough is debatable. And growing old in this province is still going to be, for many of us, a risky business.
@allengarr
