‘This is really inhumane’: Winnipeg care home tower goes without AC for six weeks

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This article was published 03/08/2023 (1105 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg personal care home tower has been without air conditioning all summer, prompting residents to cry out for help.

Actionmarguerite St. Boniface, a 299-bed facility on Despins Street, was waiting on a replacement part from the United States, after a component of its air-conditioning system failed June 21.

The newly repaired system was still being tested as of this week, and was expected to finally be up and running Aug. 4 — six weeks after it broke down.

“This is really inhumane,” Pam Jojnowicz, a resident of four years, said Thursday. “We can’t take it anymore.”

Actionmarguerite brought in 17 portable air conditioners and made 136 fans available to the affected units, the facility stated in an unsigned emailed statement Thursday.

Staff increased hydration rounds for residents and have been instructed to watch for signs of heat stress, according to the statement. Staff and residents can take breaks in an air-conditioned part of the building, and the building’s dampers are being opened each night for fresh air, officials said.

“We recognize these are not the conditions we want for our residents and staff. It is not ideal. The realities of an aging infrastructure require that we be innovative in addressing short-term solutions and we are doing all we can to ensure the safety and well-being of our residents, their families and staff,” the statement reads in part.

The chiller compressor that broke down was supplying cool air to one of two residential towers in the building. One of the towers still has AC; the other doesn’t.

Jojnowicz lives in the affected tower, along with 178 other residents. She has a progressive form of multiple sclerosis. The condition causes problems regulating body temperature.

“I feel so weak in the heat,” she said. Still, her room is relatively cool thanks to a portable air conditioner and a fan her parents supplied. “I’m one of the lucky ones.”

Jojnowicz said the temperature in the hallways and dining room, which she measured with a thermometer, reached more than 30 C Thursday afternoon.

The temperature difference was noticeable during a reporter’s visit. Fans were running in hallways, but they circulated warm air.

Jojnowicz and fellow resident Christina Storm, who also has MS, said they wanted to call public attention to the situation in hopes of helping other, more vulnerable residents who can’t speak up for themselves.

“I could handle it up until now,” Storm said, carrying a reusable water bottle filled with Gatorade in her wheelchair’s cupholder. But she said the recent heatwave has her fed up.

“The residents are really complaining,” she said. “The heat drains us completely.”

Asked if the heat has caused any illness or death among residents, Actionmarguerite stated it cannot share resident health information.

Julie Turenne-Maynard, executive director of the Manitoba Association of Residential & Community Care Homes for the Elderly (MARCHE), said she had not heard any reports of heat-related illness or death at local personal care homes.

(Actionmarguerite is a member of the association.)

Turenne-Maynard said Actionmarguerite is doing everything it can to make residents comfortable, and pointed to a lack of funding for long-term care infrastructure in Manitoba.

Most of the residences, she said, were built in the 1960s and ’70s, and necessary parts are not always readily available when systems break down.

She said the association has issued a call to action to candidates in the upcoming provincial election to invest in care home infrastructure.

“We just really need to try and appeal to our funders to support the homes that are having these critical equipment issues, and have them rectified as quickly as possible,” she said, to ensure “living environments are up to standard.”

Between May 1 and Aug. 2, 49 people suffering heat-related symptoms arrived at emergency and urgent care departments in Winnipeg, according to Shared Health. None were admitted to hospital.

“This data includes emergency and urgent care visits identified with a discharge diagnosis of a heat-related illness, but may not capture all presentations to hospital that were heat-related,” Shared Health stated.

In general, provincial legislation doesn’t require the use of air conditioning. There are regulations for minimum heat requirements in winter, but not for AC in summer.

Actionmarguerite initially expected the AC would be up and running the week of July 24, according to a memo circulated to residents, but now expects it to be working by Aug. 4, after testing of the system is done.

“In consultation with contractors and others, we determined the most appropriate plan of action was to source the parts needed. These parts came from the U.S. and there were some supply chain issues that caused delay and not all parts arrived at the same time. Late last week, a rebuild of the chiller compressor was completed,” the facility stated.

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com