Why aren’t rest homes better investment options?
Surely there's no shortage of demand?
My wife and I have often joked that we should invest into the resthome business. Assuming we had any spare money to do so, of course. And with two boys who are seemingly bottomless pits when it comes to eating (and who are only two and four years old!) spare money is something we're not used to...so our dreams of becoming part owners of a rest home are stillborn. But with the rising numbers of elderly people in New Zealand (as in so many other countries around the world) investing in rest homes should be money for jam we thought.
So I was surprised to read of this report by Westpac Bank's industry sector that suggests that resthomes aren't actually that profitable and, if we are not to be faced with a shortage of resthome beds, the government needs to increase its subsidies to the industry. This is a major problem because in the next 25 years the number of New Zealanders aged over 65 will double to 1.25 million people. And you would think that building retirement home would be a surefire economic winner – the number of potential users is only growing for the next few decades! The trouble seems to be, according to the report, that smaller, independent retirement homes are not profitable. As David Norman, the report author, states:
“Any home with less than 125 beds could not turn a reasonable profit, because they lacked the scale required to cover their costs, particularly as they faced an increasing administrative burden.”
Further, the initial investment in new retirement homes can make the entire process uneconomic, because of rapid rises in construction and land costs in many parts of the country. Thus, many small rest home operators in cities and towns were going out of business, or being bought out by the larger operators. This is a problem if smaller communities are left without a resthome facility and elderly who have no other options must move to a larger centre at a time of life when they wish to be settling somewhere that is comfortable and familiar. Alternatively, hospitals will have to house elderly patients while they wait for alternative accomodation. Which, as the report notes, could cost three to six times as much as a retirement home place.
The answer, according to the report, is for the government's subsisdy (currently between $884 and $972 a week per person) to be increased by at least 20%. Which is fine as far as it goes, but we must always ask: where are all those taxpayers going to come from to pay for this? Another economic burden that comes from a rapidly growing population. It looks as if Shannon and I will have to go back to our original idea of investing in adult diapers.
Is it worth trying to save a common English expression from incorrect usage? That is the question raised by Oxford Professor Simon Horobin’s article about five such phrases. I long to say yes, especially when the corrupted phrase is quite meaningless. In our house we have not a few times rolled our eyes and exchanged tragic looks on hearing a voice from the television saying, “The proof is in the pudding,” so it was with a certain smug satisfaction that I found this particular mangled saying at the top of Prof Horobin’s list.
Sadly, it may be too late to save the original. For one thing, it is nine words long compared with the new version, which is only six, and in a contest between brevity and meaning today, brevity is bound to win. Perhaps you have some bugbears of this nature you would like to share in the comments.
Beside the real problems of the world, of course, English usage simply doesn’t rate. One of these is drug addiction, which is ruining many lives. From Cincinnati in the US, social researcher David Lapp writes about a young man who was introduced to drugs(through marijuana) at the tender age of 13 but who now, at the age of 25, has found a way to take control of his life again. It’s an important story, one that shows there is always hope for a person who really wants to change.
Carolyn Moynihan
Deputy Editor,
MERCATORNET
| The power of a powerless addict By David Lapp |  |
| Lost in translation: five common English phrases you may be using incorrectly By Simon Horobin |  |
| Is social media turning people into narcissists? By W. Keith Campbell Social media is a tool for relationships but also for intense focus on the self. Read the full article |  |
| Why aren’t rest homes better investment options? By Marcus Roberts |  |
| The Magnificent Seven revives the classic Western By Maria Luisa Bellucci |  |
| Planned Parenthood’s century and the wages of birth control By Carolyn Moynihan |  |
| America’s ghost legions of idle men By Michael Cook Male employment rate reaches Great Depression-era levels, with nearly 1 out of 6 working-age men no longer looking for employment Read the full article |
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