Churches quit more rest homes

Churches and charities have sold out of another 11 rest homes including Auckland's Roskill Masonic Village.

Masonic Village chief executive Paul Heeney said the village was sold on Friday in a deal due to go unconditional on July 29.

The buyer is in the aged care industry and will keep the retirement units, rest home and hospital as a going concern. It is also looking at building more retirement units on the site.

The three retirement complexes of Methodist Mission Northern - Wesley Village in Mt Eden, Everil Orr Village in Mt Albert and Franklin Village in Pukekohe - have been sold as businesses to the New Zealand Life Care Group, a privately owned company that runs 10 other rest homes from Auckland to Christchurch.

The mission will keep ownership of the land at all three homes.

The Care and Independence Charitable Trust has sold Hillsborough Hospital and Remuera Life Care retirement village in Auckland, Mitchell Downs in Rotorua, the Care and Independence Hospital in Taupo and three rest homes in Christchurch to the country's biggest private resthome operator, Guardian Healthcare.

Guardian itself was sold late last year to Australia's Pacific Equity Partners for $117 million.

One property, Howick's Lansdowne hospital and resthome, has gone in the other direction from the privately owned Hunt Group to the Christian Healthcare Trust, which owns three other rest homes and four hospitals including St John's in Epsom.

So far all the deals look set to keep existing facilities operating, despite what Healthcare Providers of New Zealand describes as a "crisis" in aged care funding.

But staff numbers are being slashed as the new private owners look for efficiencies. Guardian Healthcare managing director David Renwick said the religious and welfare operators generally employed about 15 per cent more staff than private operators for the same number of beds.

"In management and overheads we run a fairly lean and mean service, whereas I know some of these organisations have a lot of peripheral things," he said.

"In terms of people on the floor - actual nursing staff - it's not dissimilar."

Methodist Mission Northern finance and business support manager Jaclyn Green said the mission was working closely with NZ Life Care to agree on reductions in service areas such as food and laundry.

"At their other sites they don't have the servery configuration. They have more hours in caregiving and the caregivers do the clearing of the tables and so forth," she said.

"Our laundry runs seven days a week at Franklin. They will run five days a week."

She said NZ Life Care was willing to compromise. For example, it had put back more servery hours into its proposed rosters after finding out what all the existing workers did.

The mission will continue to provide chaplaincy and some other services.

This week it is installing Sky television at Franklin Village using money from a bequest.

Mission superintendent the Rev Keith Taylor said the mission would use the money it saved from getting out of running the rest homes to help other people "falling through the cracks" of modern social services, including up to 3000 frail elderly people living in crowded boarding houses around Auckland.

"We are moving out of institutional care into more community care," he said.

Mr Heeney said the Freemasons, who built the Roskill Masonic Village in 1957, had not yet decided what to do with the proceeds from selling it.

Guardian Healthcare, Ryman Healthcare, NZ Life Care, Eldercare, Radius Group, Selwyn Care and Vision Senior Living all said they had not bought the Masonic Village.

Greg Tomlinson of Elrond Holdings (Qualcare), which bought Presbyterian Support Northern's seven rest homes and retirement villages last year, declined to comment.

Other rest homes still for sale include 12 of the Salvation Army's 13 rest homes from Auckland to Dunedin and four homes owned by Presbyterian Support East Coast.

CHANGING HANDS

Auckland
Roskill Masonic Village
Wesley Village
Everil Orr Village
Franklin Village
Hillsborough Hospital
Remuera Life Care

Rotorua
Mitchell Downs

Taupo
Care & Independence Hospital

Christchurch
Bethesda
Cashmere View
St Nicolas Hospital