It was announced last week that LV Care Group would take over the property from the Catholic order Little Sisters of the Poor, which has been running care homes in Jersey for over 130 years.
The nuns announced last June that they were leaving the Island owing to falling numbers in the order.
Little Sisters of the Poor closed a number of homes last year owing to the order’s drop in numbers, and sales of its properties in other locations have drawn criticism.
The decision to sell an Edinburgh care home, St Joseph’s, after rejecting proposals from two alternative care providers was highlighted in the Scottish press and described as a ‘blow for the city’.
However, Sister Caroline Emmanuel, Mother Superior Provincial, said that any money the Sisters of the Poor received from property sales was re-injected into the order’s charitable work worldwide. The nuns are active in over 30 countries.
‘Anything that is given to us in any part of the world is distributed first of all to the residents,’ she said.
Similarly, funds raised in Jersey over the years have been directed ‘first and foremost’ to the residents’ needs, she added. ‘Monies were spent on the residents, there is no question of anything going away,’ she said.
The care home on New St John’s Road houses over 80 residents on 13.4 vergées of landscaped grounds overlooking St Helier and St Aubin’s Bay.
LV Care Group, which also runs Lavender Villa Residential, Cheval Roc Residential and Nursing Home and Rosemary Cottage, beat a rival bid from the Jersey Homes Trust to secure the property.
JHT chairman Michael Van Neste said the decision – which the trustees learned of only one day before the sale was made public – was ‘very disappointing’.
‘There was a bid made by Jersey Homes Trust in November and the proposal was that JHT would acquire the freehold of the site, and Family Nursing and Home Care would be our tenants, who would take over the running of the care home,’ Mr Van Neste said.
It was hoped that the residential home could then continue as a ‘not-for-profit’ enterprise dedicated to helping the Island’s elderly poor.
‘I’m very disappointed but hopeful that the new operators will continue to reflect the legacy of the Little Sisters,’ he said, adding that the nuns had faced a difficult decision.
Mr Van Neste said he understood the charity’s bid was ‘substantially lower’ than the agreed price.
In securing the home, LV Care Group has committed to honouring the existing contracts of Jeanne Jugan’s residents and over 100 existing staff.
Group director Nick Bettany said the company was ‘looking forward to continuing the excellent work of the Little Sisters on the Island’.
Sister Caroline said that Little Sisters’ decision to leave had been a difficult one but added: ‘We are confident that LV is the best provider to run the home.’
Named after Saint Jeanne Jugan – the founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor, who was often called a ‘Saint for old age’– the hill-top care home had prioritised ‘low income elderly of at least 65 years of age’ in its admission policy.
But Mr Van Neste said there were concerns in the charitable sector that the home being run by a commercial enterprise would increase costs for residents. ‘It was run by the Little Sisters as not-for-profit and that won’t be the case going forward,’ he said.
The new owners expect to take over the home later this year and said that there were ‘no plans to change the admission policy from the existing one’.
