Anbang's purchase of B.C. seniors homes under renewed criticism
Credit to Author: Joanne Lee-Young| Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2019 00:12:54 +0000
The ownership of B.C.’s Retirement Concepts by China’s Anbang Insurance Group is under scrutiny after one seniors home on Vancouver Island was taken over by the regional health authority and two others were put under investigation.
This week, Island Health said it is taking over a Retirement Concepts facility in Courtenay after allegations of abuse and neglect. It is also investigating similar complaints at two other facilities, in Victoria and Nanaimo.
Jennie Deneka, partner at Pacific Reach Seniors Housing Management that manages Retirement Concepts, said the problems on the Island are caused by a critical staff shortage that does not affect its homes in the Lower Mainland and the Interior.
Staffing may indeed be behind the problems, said Mike Old, coordinator of policy and planning for the Hospital Employees’ Union. But, he said, Retirement Concepts is known for paying low wages.
“We’ve been talking for a while about what impact the financial state of Anbang could have on the operations of these facilities,” he said.
The Beijing company had been a swashbuckling buyer of properties such as the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. Anbang bought Retirement Concepts, the highest-billing provider of assisted living and services for seniors in B.C., in 2016.
In 2018, Anbang’s chairman was jailed for corruption. The company started selling US$10 billion in buildings and hotels it owns in North America and Europe, including the Bentall Centre in downtown Vancouver, to pay off debts.
The situation at the seniors facilities overseen by Island Health could be a “canary in the coal mine” for the others, said Old.
It raises questions about whether Ottawa and Victoria, which approved the Anbang purchase, did enough to assess the Chinese insurance company.
Former B.C. health minister Terry Lake, who is running for the Liberals in Kamloops—Thomson—Cariboo, said Friday that Ottawa was responsible for vetting the buyer and B.C. assessed the company’s eligibility for receiving licenses based on the operator continuing to be contracted to run the facilities in the same way for a minimum of three years.
At the time, federal Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said Anbang’s wholly-owned, Vancouver-based subsidiary agreed to maintain levels of full-time and part-time employees, ensure Canadians played a role in the business and maintained existing residences.
However, B.C. hospital workers and others expressed their concerns in 2016 that working hours and provision of care could deteriorate under Anbang’s ownership.