Advocates push for mandated AC in care homes
Families worry as temperatures rise, putting seniors at risk
It’s 30 C. Wendy Cooper-Parkinson’s 89-year-old mother is wearing a black, heavy-knit sweater at the long-term-care home where she lives.
She has trouble breathing even on the best of days and there is no air-conditioning in her room, no fan.
With the help of a support worker, Cooper-Parkinson checks on her mother in a video call.
“Looks pretty hot to be wearing a sweater … we gotta get that fixed for sure,” Cooper-Parkinson says. Her mother has advanced dementia and doesn’t respond. Cooper-Parkinson knows from visits in previous years that her mother’s room can become stiflingly hot in the summer.
Ontario advocates worry that seniors already preyed upon by COVID-19 will continue dying — not from COVID, but from the heat — unless the government mandates air-conditioning in residents’ rooms. Temperatures in Toronto have soared to the 30s in the past couple of weeks.
Extendicare isn’t providing even fans for residents, CooperParkinson said. She says she was told by staff that families can bring portable fans for their loved ones’ rooms, where residents now spend almost all their time due to infection-control protocols.
“They should be providing something,” Cooper-Parkinson told the Star. “You would think that after all of this … I mean, it’s heartbreaking.”
Extendicare sent the Star a written statement Tuesday afternoon, clarifying that residents in all Extendicare homes should have access to air-conditioned “cooling stations” or have portable fans in their rooms and that Extendicare would follow up with the Guildwood home.
“For residents who cannot leave their rooms for medical reasons, we ensure they are provided with increased fluids, loosened clothing, portable fans, and we remove excess bedding,” said spokesperson Rebecca Scott Rawn.
Rawn said Extendicare has been advocating for infrastructure upgrades of long-termcare homes for more than a decade.
Extendicare Guildwood is one of Ontario’s care homes worst hit by COVID-19.
By May, a quarter of the residents had died from the virus and more than half had tested positive.
Premier Doug Ford, saying he didn’t know some homes lack ways to keep residents cool during heat waves, pointed the finger at long-term-care operators in a news conference Monday.
“I’d like to give these owners who don’t put air-conditioning on the short list to stick them in the room for 24 hours in 30 degrees heat. See how they like it, to put their parents in there.”
Ford said he would consider making air-conditioning mandatory in homes.
In a written statement Tuesday, NDP opposition leader Andrea Horwath said her party had raised the issue before.
“It’s shameful that the Liberal government had 15 years and, time and time again, refused to set minimum cooling and other standards in long-term care when the NDP raised this issue,” the statement read.
“And it’s shameful for Doug Ford to now claim he didn’t know that seniors living in these homes are suffering without air-conditioning after the NDP brought it to his attention in the legislature two years ago.”
AdvantAge Ontario, which represents 200 non-profit and municipal long-term-care homes in the province, acknowledged the lack of air-conditioning is a long-standing issue.
CEO Lisa Levin did not have exact numbers to share, but said “many” homes don’t have air-conditioning.
Some care homes have installed air-conditioning and multiple thermostats on every floor.
For instance, the Salvation Army’s Grace Manor in Ottawa has air-conditioning in residents’ rooms and its Meighen Manor in Toronto has a dual air-control system in which conditioned air from common areas is blown into residents’ rooms. There is one thermostat for every five rooms at Meighen Manor, said Major Rob Kerr, a spokesperson for the charity.
But for the many homes that don’t have sufficient cooling, Levin believes the province needs to start planning to evacuate residents.
“It’s shocking that we’ve allowed our system of long-term care to be built up in this way that you have frail, vulnerable seniors — even if there wasn’t any COVID — who would be in buildings without air-conditioning.” The COVID-19 pandemic has only made the situation more dangerous for residents in homes without air-conditioning, said Laura Tamblyn Watts, CEO of CanAge, a seniors advocacy organization.
Some care homes have airconditioning in common rooms where residents could previously spend most of their days to stay cool, but the pandemic — and the infection control protocols that came with it — changed all that.
Tamblyn Watts said the Ontario government needs to make air-conditioning mandatory in all long-term-care homes — and specifically in residents’ rooms, not just common areas. Otherwise more residents will die, she said.
“I think we will see people die from the heat in combination with the COVID restrictions. That would be a tragedy upon a tragedy and easily preventable.”
Cooper-Parkinson’s mother is deteriorating quickly. Some days, she is unresponsive.
“My mom can’t even hold her head up in the wheelchair. Her head is back, her eyes are closed,” she said.
In yesterday’s FaceTime video, Cooper-Parkinson sang her mother’s favourite song.
“You’ll never know dear how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away. Hi mom, are you going to sing it with me?”