This month we reached a wretched milestone at Kerikeri Retirement Village. The waiting list for a bed in our 66-person Care facility has now reached an all-time high of 122.
I’ve rung this alarm bell before and I’m ringing it again now. We have a dangerous shortage of care beds for elderly across our region. And it’s simply not right that the powers-that-be should ‘rest easy’ that this desperate need is being met by a handful of poorly-funded, small retirement and aged-care operators across our region.
The truth is, our society is not meeting the need. And, on current trends, the gap between supply and demand will only grow wider.
If we only had to look after Kerikeri Retirement Village residents our 66 Care beds would be ample. But the fact that we are, literally, ‘the only game in town’ means that we are simply unable to deny care for those in our wider community who need it. Our residents go to the top of our waiting list, for sure, but as we cater almost exclusively for the growing number of elderly in our rohe that doesn’t guarantee them a bed when they need it. And it makes it almost impossible for anyone near the bottom of the list.
The government has been pushing ‘ageing in place’; sending care to a person’s home, rather than admitting them to a care facility, for some time now. But often this is just not feasible. So we have a growing list of people who cannot get a care bed when they need it.
Care is an extremely expensive part of a retirement village’s operation. Which is why many operators are doing the profitable stuff (selling Occupation Right Agreements for retirement homes), but not doing the profit-draining bit (providing Care for all the elderly they are housing).
The way Care homes are funded by the Ministry of Health makes it difficult for them to be financially viable in their own right. In our case we subsidise our Care facility through surpluses generated from the retirement village. But the rising cost of running these facilities requires us getting to a more sustainable ratio of accommodation to Care beds, or reducing the number of care beds.
So what’s the solution?
Firstly - regional and district councils need to stop letting operators build retirement accommodation without adequate - and simultaneous - Care unit provision. And they need to start enforcing commitments to build these facilities from those who are already operating here.
Secondly - the Ministry of Health needs to look at ‘outside the box’ solutions such as construction partnerships with aged care providers. Government would fund construction, with aged care providers like ourselves providing the actual service. In other words: “you build it, we’ll run it”.
Something drastic needs to be done - now - so that the families of our region can rest assured that there will be somewhere decent for our elders to go, to get the care they deserve as they age.
