MONTREAL — As an early heat wave descends on Quebec, provincial health authorities are looking for ways to keep residents cool in the province's COVID-19-hit long-term care homes.
Roughly two-thirds of the province's long-term care rooms do not have air conditioning according to the province, and the usual practice of designated cooling areas has been complicated by fears of further spreading the novel coronavirus.
One patients' right advocate says the pandemic may finally force Quebec to provide all residents with proper in-room air conditioning.
"What we're asking is that all patients in long-term facilities should not have to experience 30 or 35 degrees in their rooms," Paul Brunet, president of the Conseil pour la protection des malades in Quebec, said Tuesday.
"We don't want them to suffocate. We don't want them to die from heat waves."
During a COVID-19 briefing on Monday, Quebec Premier Francois Legault noted the government had invested $30 million to establish cooling zones, which he said now exist in 97 per cent of long-term care homes.
But Quebec's health minister said practices will have to change to ensure residents are not infected while getting relief from the heat. "It's going to be more complicated this year, and we're going to have to be very careful not to have people mix," Danielle McCann said Monday.
Late Monday, the province's public health institute, an independent body, issued a notice sanctioning the use of portable air conditioners and floor-standing fans in long-term care and seniors homes.
It noted that the devices present a risk of spreading micro-organisms and advised that the flow of air should not be directed toward the door of the room or toward a resident's face.
"Currently, there is no substantial evidence specific to the use of portable air conditioners and floor-standing fans in the literature for users suspected or confirmed to have COVID-19," the notice stated, adding that a local analysis of risks and benefits should be conducted.
Brunet said he has always opposed centralized cooling rooms — saying the practice of grouping residents on a given floor in one air conditioned area "like animals" was disrespectful.
"We were told 15 years ago that heat waves were coming, they would very intense, but nothing was done," Brunet said, deploring the inaction of successive governments.
McCann explained that buildings that house long-term care homes are in poor shape and have electrical systems that can't handle the additional load of air conditioning. An existing plan to use generators and add external air conditioners this June is being pushed up, McCann added.
The air conditioning issue has been a recurring problem and despite some recent improvement, much more needs to be done, according to the AQRP, an association representing public sector retirees.
The AQRP welcomed the government's acceleration of the air conditioner deployment plan and stressed there is no time to waste, spokesman Mathieu Hardy said in an email.
The Coalition Avenir Quebec government has touted its plan to replace aging long-term care centres with new seniors homes featuring individual rooms and air conditioning. But those projects are years away, the AQRP noted.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 26, 2020.
Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press
