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Failed hotel provides new home for seniors

2014-12-12 12:55 Shanghai Daily Web Editor: Wang Fan
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Residents dance at the Liyang Road care home, where prices start at 4,800 yuan a month. [Xinhua]

Residents dance at the Liyang Road care home, where prices start at 4,800 yuan a month. [Xinhua]

A new care home for the elderly in Hongkou District was officially opened last month after a year in development.

The Hongye Senior Home on Liyang Road, which can accommodate 250 people, was formerly the three-star Hongye Hotel. But when business in the hospitality sector slowed, its owners, Shanghai Guohong Asset Management Co, decided the time was ripe for a move into the senior care market.

With financial and administrative support from the local government, Guohong embarked on a redevelopment program in November last year.

"It wasn't easy to convert hotel rooms into apartments suitable for seniors," said Yu Gendi, the home's director.

"Bathtubs had to be removed and replaced with shower rooms, and new furniture was brought in," she said.

The property also had to meet strict health and safety guidelines set by the city's civil affairs authorities, she said.

The home unofficially opened in March, and has been slowly evolving since, Yu said.

It is now home to more than 70 people, the oldest of whom is 97, she said.

Accommodation doesn't come cheap, however. Residents pay from 4,800 yuan (US$775) to more than 6,000 yuan a month, depending on the level of care they require and the number of people with whom they share an apartment.

Shi Sujuan, a retired teacher in her 70s, has lived at Hongye with her octogenarian husband for about six months. She said she likes her new home because it is close to where her daughter lives.

"Where we lived before was further out and it would take my daughter two hours to visit us. Now she's just around the corner," Shi said.

"There's also a park and a hospital nearby," she said.

Faced with a shortage of care home beds for the elderly, the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau has in recent years encouraged district authorities to seek ways to fill the void.

In Hongkou, most old people's homes are full to capacity, so officials were keen to assist Guohong in any way they could.

The support will be ongoing and will include helping the home find suitably qualified staff, who remain in short supply in Shanghai.

All of the profits from the venture will go to Guohong.

Under government guidelines, all care homes are required to employ at least one qualified nursing worker for every five to 10 residents.

Hongye has just 10 nurses for its 70-plus residents.

In October, more than 1,000 people completed a care worker training program. The government plans to stage similar schemes to train more workers in the future, the civil affairs bureau said earlier.

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