99% of Ontario nursing homes now have air conditioning in residents’ rooms: minister
Global News
Nearly 99 per cent of nursing homes in Ontario now have air conditioning in residents' rooms, almost a year after the province set a deadline for the requirement.
Nearly 99 per cent of nursing homes in Ontario now have air conditioning in residents’ rooms, almost a year after the province set a deadline for the requirement.
Long-Term Care Minister Paul Calandra said only nine of the 625 nursing homes in Ontario remain without air conditioning in resident rooms.
Three of those are expected to have units installed by the end of May, and three more are on track to have AC this summer. Two homes have electrical capacity issues but are being redeveloped and will eventually have AC. The government has granted exemptions to those eight homes and recently fined a ninth one.
The province is now conducting an inspection blitz, as the warm weather arrives, to ensure homes are complying with legislation that mandates air conditioning in resident rooms.
“It’s a shame that we actually had to put a program in place that air conditions the homes, but we’re there now, 99 per cent done, and just a couple more left to go,” Calandra told The Canadian Press in an interview.
Legislation passed in 2021 required long-term care homes to install air conditioning in all resident rooms by June 2022.
The province gives homes funding for air conditioning and is spending $200 million on the program, Calandra said.
The government also recently passed regulations that allow it to slap higher fines on nursing homes not in compliance with the law.