About 50% of residents in CHSLDs in Quebec do not have air-conditioned rooms, according to a survey conducted this summer by the Quebec Association of Retirees from the Public and Parapublic Sectors (AQRP).
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The results of the survey, released on Friday, show that 45.9% of rooms are air-conditioned by CHSLD-type establishments in the province. Compared to 2021, this is a slight increase of 2.5%.
The percentage of CHSLDs equipped with at least one air-conditioned common room reached 91.4%. This is a significant increase of 6.3% over last year.
“Although we welcome this increase in the number of air-conditioned rooms in CHSLD-type establishments, it is high time that all of these rooms were equipped with air conditioners. Let us remember that the heat waves of 2019 and 2020, for their part, caused the death of 17 and 21 people respectively,” declared the provincial president of the AQRP, Paul-René Roy.
Furthermore, the survey reveals that the percentage of rooms equipped with private air conditioners is 6.3%. This figure, a slight increase of 0.8% compared to 2021, is “catastrophic”, according to Mr. Roy.
“We must at all costs avoid a second carnage in our CHSLDs before our seniors die of heat due to the heat wave,” he lamented.
Listen to Paul-René Roy’s interview with Patrick Déry on QUB Radio:
The CISSS de la Gaspésie is lagging behind
The Gaspésie Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS) is the one with the largest gap in terms of the number of rooms with air conditioning.
In 2021, the percentage of air-conditioned rooms stood at 22.4%, while in 2022 this number dropped to 0.7%, a drop of 21.7%.
The report nevertheless notes that all of the CHSLDs in Gaspésie are equipped with at least one air-conditioned common room, both in 2021 and in 2022.
Improvement in some regions
Among the regions that have particularly stood out, the CISSS de la Montérégie-Est has seen its percentage of air-conditioned rooms increase from 9.5% in 2019 to 100% in 2022. The same goes for that of Montérégie-Ouest, which now has 100 % of air-conditioned rooms, compared to 19.2% in 2019.
The CIUSSS de la Mauricie-et-du-Centre-du-Québec also reports an almost perfect score with 99.5% of air-conditioned rooms, compared to 60.6% in 2019.
The CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal has 48.2% air-conditioned rooms, the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal has 18.5%, while those of Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal and Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal did not provide an answer allowing the percentage of rooms with air conditioning to be counted.
“Not all residents who want an air conditioner”
The office of the minister responsible for seniors and caregivers, Marguerite Blais, reacted on Tuesday by indicating that each CHSLD resident who wants an air conditioner in his room can request it, free of charge.
“Not all residents want an air conditioner in their room,” the minister’s office said in an email sent to the QMI Agency.
“Those who request one can have one installed quickly and free of charge. The CI(U)SSS have air conditioners in sufficient quantity to meet demand,” it was claimed.
The minister’s office also said it was “ready to face the heat waves of the summer of 2022”.