People with chronic health conditions and the elderly are especially vulnerable to high heat and humidity — and to COVID-19. That leaves long-term care homes facing a doubly challenging situation: how to deal with the heat while preventing further spread of the virus.
When it gets as hot as it is in Montreal this week, with humidex values expected to reach 40 Wednesday, Mendy Fellig becomes all but helpless.
Fellig, 43, has multiple sclerosis. He can’t leave his room without help from the staff of Maimonides, the long-term care home in the Côte Saint-Luc borough where he lives.
“The heat is terrible for me. I can’t function,” Felig said. “I become completely disabled — even more so disabled. I can’t move. I can’t move my hands, so as soon as there’s no air conditioning, I shut down.”
Environment Canada has issued a heat warning for much of southern Quebec, and meteorologist André Cantin said temperatures in Montreal are expected to be higher than normal, on average, all summer.
People with chronic physical or mental health conditions and the elderly are especially vulnerable to high heat and humidity.
With the COVID-19 pandemic also impacting people with disabilities and those over 70, long-term care homes are facing a doubly challenging situation: how to deal with the heat while preventing further spread of the novel coronavirus.
1/3 of rooms with A/C
Fewer than a third of the rooms have air conditioning in the province’s long-term care institutions (known as CHSLDs), where the majority of cases with com