REGINA – For the second time this summer, a major health facility in southern Saskatchewan has lost air conditioning during a heat wave. First it was Providence Place in Moose Jaw, now it’s Wascana Rehabilitation Centre.
According to the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region, one of the air conditioning units quit working Thursday evening, after a power outage.
Global News was notified of the problem by Reta Duncan, the wife of a long-term resident. Duncan said it was sweltering in her husband’s room Saturday.
The rehab centre has 307 beds for in-patients and clients needing specialized care.
Duncan’s husband has had multiple strokes and is in a wheelchair; she said his shirt was so wet she could almost wring it out: “Being an ex-nurse, I’m afraid that someone is going to get so dehydrated or have a heat stroke, that’s my main concern. And not just residents, but staff as well. It’s not healthy, what’s going on,” she said.
According to Duncan, staff are encouraging residents to drink ice water.
To try and keep the temperature down, the nurses are allegedly working with only emergency lighting and have closed windows and blinds.
As of Sunday morning, Duncan said fans had not been brought into people’s rooms: “When I brought my concerns to the one staff, he said he’d taken it to management and they said ‘old people like it hot’ and that whatever happened in there was to stay in the hospital. They weren’t to talk to anyone on the outside.”
The health region declined an interview to directly respond to these allegations, but did issue a statement:
“Thursday evening a power outage blew a circuit breaker and we are waiting for parts to repair the chiller. One chiller is operational and air handling units have been adjusted to evenly distribute the air throughout the area. The unit is much more comfortable today (Sunday). We have shut down fan units that supply unoccupied weekend areas to give resident areas more cooling. The safety and comfort of our residents is always a priority and we are doing our best to provide optimum care given the circumstances.”
RQHR said the broken part is being ordered in, but could not give a timeline as to when the air conditioning will be fixed.
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