B.C. is upgrading air conditioning at long-term care homes two years after the 2021 deadly heat dome, but the province isn’t as far advanced as Ontario.
In Ontario, the Conservative government passed legislation in 2021 that required all long-term care homes to have air conditioning in residents’ rooms by June 2022, and fined them if they didn’t. By the end of this summer, more than 99 per cent of 625 homes in Ontario will have complied.
B.C.’s laws don’t explicitly require air conditioning in long-term care homes. Instead, the homes are required to ensure heating and cooling is “safe and comfortable” for residents.
In other jurisdictions, such as Washington state and Oregon, state governments have set maximum temperatures that must be met in care homes. Washington state also requires nursing homes built since 2000 to have air conditioning.
In B.C., since the heat dome, air conditioning has been installed and upgraded in seniors care homes in Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island, but not in the Interior and the North, according to information provided by the Health Ministry.
Exactly how many of the more than 300 care homes in B.C. remain without air conditioning isn’t clear, or what exactly the upgrades entail, including if it brings air conditioning to all residents’ rooms as it does in Ontario.
In a written statement, provided by senior public affairs officer Chelsea Falconer, the Health Ministry says air conditioning has been installed in 47 long-term care homes in the Fraser, Vancouver Coastal and Vancouver Island health authorities where there was none in 2021 and upgraded in existing systems at another 149 homes in those health authorities.
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix wasn’t available for an interview.
“We are working hard to build and replace assisted living and long term care homes throughout the province,” his office said by email. “We have already broken ground on new projects across B.C. that consider the impact of extreme weather designed to ensure HVAC systems meet needs for heating and cooling.”
“There are challenges with requiring A/C in all LTC homes due to the age of some buildings. It isn’t possible to upgrade some aspects of aging building’s HVAC system to support air conditioning,” the ministry said in its written statement provided by Falconer.
It’s not clear why there have been no upgrades in the 20 care homes without air conditioning in the Interior and the North.
Isobel Mackenzie, B.C. senior’s advocate, says B.C. needs more explicit language that sets out minimum and maximum temperatures that must be maintained in long-term care homes, and a plan that sets out what regions of the province must have cooling systems, including, for example, the Interior, where temperatures near 50 C were reached during the heat dome.
Mackenzie said she wasn’t suggesting that “absolutely” every room should have air conditioning but the plan should identify the sites and the rooms that will be upgraded.
“Set a target of compliance over the next three or four years,” urged Mackenzie, who has raised concerns on cooling and care homes previously.
Lorne Sisley, Interior Health’s corporate director of facilities management and operations, said in an email all 39 of the region’s long-term care facilities have central cooling systems, though in 12 they’re only available in common areas and not in rooms.
“We have allocated funding to those facilities where the HVAC systems were determined to need upgrades in order to respond to the more extreme and extended heat events,” Sisley said. “Where there are delays, IH has purchased mobile units to deploy to sites whose systems may be challenged with extreme heat events.”
Window films or shades are also being added to reduce direct sunlight.
Long-term care homes with no air conditioning or partial air conditioning were highlighted by the province just weeks after the 2021 heat dome, according to B.C. government communications revealed in a freedom-of-information request.
Of the 258 care homes where air conditioning status was known, 21 per cent had no air conditioning, 42 per cent had partial air conditioning and 37 per cent had full air conditioning.
Of those with no air conditioning, 15 were in the Fraser Health Authority, 12 in Interior Health, 11 in Vancouver Coastal Health, eight in Vancouver Island Health and eight in Northern Health.
Another 55 in Fraser Health had partial air conditioning, 31 in Vancouver Coastal and 15 in Vancouver Island Health.
Just weeks after the heat dome, the federal government announced a safe care home program, with $134 million earmarked for B.C. The province has also provided funding through an equipment program, including $147,457 in the 2021-22 fiscal year for 126 air conditioning units.
B.C. Care Providers Association CEO Terry Lake said the two-thirds of care-home owners his organization represents, which include private and not-profit owners, tapped into the federal and provincial funding to carry out upgrades. Much of that took place in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, where historically buildings were constructed without air conditioning because it wasn’t needed, he said.
That has changed with temperatures climbing, said Lake.
He said there may be cases where because of the age of a building and how it was constructed, it isn’t possible to install air conditioning with the amount of government funding available to a care home.
He noted that health authorities now also require care homes to have heat plans, that include moving residents to cooler parts of a building.
Provincial officials have warned to expect extreme heat similar to 2021 to take place once-to-twice a decade and for heat warnings to happen at least once a summer.
During the 2021 extreme heat, more than 600 people died, largely seniors living alone. Most people died in Metro and the Fraser Valley, with 107 dying in the Interior and the North. About 40 people who lived in care homes died, according to a coroner’s review, much less than lived in apartments or houses.
But information in provincial and regional health authority communications obtained in the freedom-of-information requests show significant effort went into providing assistance and cooling to care homes that had inadequate or no air conditioning. Portable air conditioning units were brought in and placed in dozens of care homes, as well as hundreds of fans.
At the Hilton Villa in Surrey, home to 140 residents, one of its two buildings was constructed in the 1970s and had no air conditioning.
According to Fraser Health communications, the Hilton Villa had to send one resident to Surrey Memorial Hospital and added three staff to ensure residents had enough water and to help with cold compresses. Staff also moved residents to a cooler section of the facility and asked the fire service to come and assess the situation.
Kathy Nduwayo, vice-president of Park Place Seniors Living, which owns the home, said they used funding from the federal program to install a heat-recovery ventilation system in the 1970s’ section of the facility, which helps to cool air in summer and heat air in the winter. The project was completed in February.
Nduwayo noted that through efforts of staff to keep residents cool during the heat dome, only one person was sent to hospital and no deaths occurred as a direct result of the heat dome.
