热噩梦养老院

[chengse]

Heat wave drives elderly couple from sweltering nursing home

Couple's daughter took them to her own home an hour's drive away after room temperature hit 31 C

Susan Burgess - CBC News


July 05, 2018

Ruth Sirman has temporarily moved her parents Helen and Harold Davies, both 94, into her own home because of 'unbearable' heat in their long-term care facility. (Susan Burgess)
The extreme heat at a Perth, Ont., nursing home has pushed an Ottawa woman to move her elderly parents to her own house until things cool down.

Harold and Helen Davies, both 94, had moved into Lanark Lodge just last winter, and their daughter Ruth Sirman said she was recently "stunned" to discover there was no air conditioning in their rooms.

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Last Thursday, Sirman and her sister — whose mother-in-law also lives at Lanark Lodge — got thermometers to monitor the minimum and maximum temperatures. Three days later, when the temperature hit 31.5 C, Sirman drove to Perth to bring her parents — along with their medications, walkers, and two duffel bags filled with belongings — back to her home in Ottawa.

"They needed to get out of there because dad was getting sick," Sirman said. "The day I brought them home he was vomiting from heat stress."

Portable air conditioners not allowed
Sirman hoped to install portable air conditioners in the rooms, but said she was told the electrical system in the building couldn't handle the load.

Meantime, staff are doing everything they can to help the residents cope with the heat, she said. That has included providing fluids and bringing the residents to an air-conditioned dining room and common area to cool off.

She and her parents all worry about how the nurses are coping, and about residents who have no choice but to stay.

"Quite frankly, I'm embarrassed to say that I had no idea that seniors were living in conditions like this over the last however many years," said Sirman.

Ruth Sirman says she won't leave her 94-year-old parents at the Lanark Lodge nursing home in Perth while the temperatures are untenable. 0:51


Air conditioned bedrooms not required
Lanark Lodge opened in 1967 and is operated by the municipality of Lanark County. The county's CAO said typically, the lodge is preoccupied with cold and ensuring the temperature doesn't drop below the legislated minimum of 22 C.

"I've been the CAO for six years. I've never had a complaint about (heat) before," said Kurt Greaves, adding the lodge has been keeping curtains drawn and using fans to provide relief for residents. "This is unprecedented heat and I'm sure lots of people are suffering."

All long-term care facilities in Ontario are required by provincial law to have some air-conditioned common rooms, and in homes built since 1998, all common areas and hallways must be air conditioned. But there's no requirement for bedrooms to be air conditioned, even in new buildings, according to Jane Meadus, a lawyer at Toronto's Advocacy Centre for the Elderly.

"I think it's atrocious," said Meadus. "I've been in new homes and been in rooms that I could not stay in. So I don't know how the residents do it."

Jane Meadus, a lawyer with Toronto's Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, says all long-term care homes in Ontario should be upgraded to have air conditioned bedrooms. (CBC)
Couple will stay put until temperature drops
Ontario's Ministry of Health and Long Term Care said it could not provide comment on Wednesday.

As for Sirman, until the temperature in her parents's home drops below 25 C, she plans to keep them with her.

With climate change producing hotter summers, she also hopes the new provincial government will upgrade homes so other families are spared the need to uproot their aged parents during heat waves.

"We owe our seniors," Sirman said. "We owe them a comfortable, decent place to live."

 

[chengse]

养老靠自己？交那么多税，落到如此地步？

 

[op97]

纳税人给政府的钱都花到哪儿去了？为什么不给 long-term care 装空调？

 

[op97]

All long-term care facilities in Ontario are required by provincial law to have some air-conditioned common rooms, and in homes built since 1998, all common areas and hallways must be air conditioned. But there's no requirement for bedrooms to be air conditioned, even in new buildings, according to Jane Meadus, a lawyer at Toronto's Advocacy Centre for the Elderly.

"I think it's atrocious," said Meadus. "I've been in new homes and been in rooms that I could not stay in. So I don't know how the residents do it."
...

As for Sirman, until the temperature in her parents's home drops below 25 C, she plans to keep them with her.

With climate change producing hotter summers, she also hopes the new provincial government will upgrade homes so other families are spared the need to uproot their aged parents during heat waves.

"We owe our seniors," Sirman said. "We owe them a comfortable, decent place to live."

住护理院的人们都是需要照顾的，他们之中很多人移动不方便，经常是每天绝大部分时间都呆在自己的房间。
省里的规定应该改了：给他们房间装空调是起码的人道要求。

 

[陶陶咦咦咦]

纳税人给政府的钱都花到哪儿去了？为什么不给 long-term care 装空调？

还有 salvation army 里的流浪者待遇好呢，人家还有人给用凉水擦擦

 

[陶陶咦咦咦]

 

[云霞]

对这些老年纳税人怎么即没爱心，也不人道。
以后廉租屋估计也要纳税人配空调了。

 

[Longhair]

非法难民占用了多少资源？

 

[cable4sale]

纳税人给政府的钱都花到哪儿去了？为什么不给 long-term care 装空调？

nursing home...
不是政府开的..但是,如果你没钱,, 政府可以帮你给一部分

 

[chengse]

管他妈的谁开的，交了一辈子税。生活在发达国家。g7。
不至于如此。政府可以有法规，民间可以有竞争。不至于如此。

 

[三三33]

私人养老院。条件不好可以搬走。
要政府出台规定很难吧。冬天暖气温度不够是有规定。夏天这个再多观察几年吧。

 

[peterchen]

私人养老院。条件不好可以搬走。
要政府出台规定很难吧。冬天暖气温度不够是有规定。夏天这个再多观察几年吧。

there is a few years of lineup...

 

[peterchen]

The families of patients in some of Montreal's hospitals are denouncing "inhumane" conditions, as temperatures soar in rooms and conditions deteriorate amidst Quebec's deadly heat wave.

As of Thursday morning, the heat wave had claimed 33 lives throughout the province.

At Sacre Coeur Hospital, the families of some patients have complained that a lack of air conditioning is making conditions inhumane. Temperatures in some rooms have reached as high as 32 degrees.

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The heat wave in Quebec has claimed 18 lives as of Thursday morning.

"They're suffering and they're going to be suffering more if there's no air conditioning," said Effie Tsatoumas, whose mother is being treated for pneumonia.

Tsatoumas said her family tried to bring a portable air conditioner into her mother's room but were told by security it wasn't allowed.

"I don't understand, for elderly people to have no air conditioning in the state they're in," she said. "I'm healthy and I had a hard time breathing in there."

Tsatoumas said her mother began suffering from dehydration and eventually went into cardiac arrest after her organs started failing.

"This has been a nightmare for my whole family and most importantly for my mother," she said. "She's in a state where we're very concerned and we don't know what's going to happen next."

Her mother has been transferred to the hospital's ICU, one of the few units that does have A/C.

Josee Savoie, the hospital's director of professional services, said only the facility's critical care units are air conditioned.

Over the past decade, $10 million has been spent on upgrading the hospital's electric system, but Director of Technical Services Frederic Cossette said the hospital still can't support an air conditioning system.

"All of our electrical panels are fully loaded, so we have only the essentials for patient care," he said. "We're not able to upgrade it now and have enough power to have A/C in all our rooms."

"Of course, it would be ideal to have air conditioning in all rooms, but it's not what we have in those old buildings," she said.

According to public health officials, all the fatalities have been elderly or had chronic health conditions and none had air conditioning.

Mylene Drouin, the Montreal Regional Director of Public Health, laid out some guidelines for concerned family members of hospitalized patients.

"We ask people to take the patients out of their rooms at least two times a day for two hours," she said. "There are places that have air conditioning in each hospital and we ask them to give them water and towels (dunked in) cold water."

Drouin said on Tuesday that Urgences-Sante had reported a 30 per cent rise in ambulance transports since the beginning of the heat wave, up to about 1,200 per day. Drouin said the increase matches that seen during similar weather in 2010.

“At the moment, it fits exactly with the features we’ve described: people with chronic diseases, mental health issues, people who live alone, people without air conditioning who live in apartments of more than four or six stories and obviously, in areas where there is lots of heat,” she said. “These are the same criteria that’s used with our partners who are going door to door.”

Montreal’s civil services have announced the introduction of measures aimed at ensuring the well-being and safety of residents, including a door-to-door operation designed to reach at-risk people and to provide prevention advice in certain areas.

An emergency coordination centre has been activated to supervise those measures and Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante has called on Montrealers to show solidarity with at-risk people.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to express his condolences to the families of victims.

 

[peterchen]

Justin Trudeau ✔@JustinTrudeau


My thoughts are with the loved ones of those who have died in Quebec during this heat wave. The record temperatures are expected to continue in central & eastern Canada, so make sure you know how to protect yourself & your family:

 

[op97]

私人养老院。条件不好可以搬走。
要政府出台规定很难吧。冬天暖气温度不够是有规定。夏天这个再多观察几年吧。

私人养老院完全按商业规则办，条件不好是可以搬走。Nursing House 不是私人养老院，是医保的一部分。Nursing House 可能是私人办的，但是必须达到省里的规定。Nursing House不是想进就能进的，必须满足省里的要求，说白了就是需要长期护理的病人。你让他们往哪搬？
我家现在有老人住retirement home，全自费的那种。我经常到那里去。我家的老人平常是怕冷不怕热的，但是室温到了27度就热的喘不上气来；护理人员一动就大汗淋漓。凭我的经验，我认为对老人和病人室温必须能控制在26度以下。我很难想象老人病人整天在31度的室温下生活。
想想自己也有老的时候；不能因为老人不能发声就把对老人的待遇定得那么低。再说那些老人在年轻时是纳税的，省里改善他们的条件花的不是我们的钱，是他们自己的钱。