Twelve of 61 retirement homes registered in Ottawa do not have automatic sprinkler systems, according to Ottawa Fire and Safety Services.
Statistics provided by the agency show that all of the retirement homes registered within Centretown have the systems installed.
In the wake of the deadly fire that claimed the lives of at least 24 people at a retirement home in L’Isle-Verte, Que. last month, fire safety systems at senior care facilities in Ottawa have been under scrutiny.
A provincial regulation that took effect on Jan. 1 requires any senior care facility in Ontario without automatic sprinklers to install them by 2019. The law was passed by Queen's Park last spring.
McLeod Retirement Home, at 330 McLeod St., has a resident capacity of 72. Building owner Claude Brunet says he installed automatic sprinklers in the facility in 1999, and they've been inspected each year since.
Brunet says that because residents at retirement homes may not be well enough to move around by themselves, fire safety procedures are of particular importance to plan how to properly evacuate residents who may use wheelchairs or walkers.
“Lots of retirement homes have special floors which deal with patients who have Alzheimer’s,” Brunet says.
“At McLeod, all the residents have to be self-sufficient . . . We provide care, but they have to be well enough to say, dress themselves.”
However, the new regulations don’t just apply to retirement homes, but also to nursing homes and all facilities which provide care for seniors.
Marc Messier, spokesperson for the Ottawa Fire Services, says the 12 retirement homes still lacking the upgraded fire safety systems will join a larger list of other businesses and facilities which fit the criteria of the new regulations as well.
These include nursing homes, hospitals and hotels which provide long-term senior care.
“We have 232 residences in the city of Ottawa that are affected by this new law . . . All of these businesses will be checked by our inspectors on a yearly basis.”
St. Vincent Hospital, located at 60 Cambridge St. N., is owned and operated by Bruyere Continuing Care.
The Ottawa based medical care company has facilities around the city dedicated to caring after seniors, especially those with serious medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s.
Although it is not classified as a retirement home, the hospital provides long-term care to seniors, thus fitting the criteria of the new regulations.
Merille Kirouac, facilities manager at Bruyere, says the St. Vincent building underwent major renovations from 2002 to 2006.
“The sprinkler system is a major component of our fire suppression system,” Kirouac says.
With residents who would need extra help to evacuate in the event of a fire, Kirouac says they have a more than adequate staff to patient ratio which meets provincial evacuation standards.
One of the facilities without a complete sprinkler system is The Palisades, a retirement home run by Toronto-based Symphony Senior Living.
Bordering on Centretown at 480 Metcalfe St., The Palisades holds 154 units and has a maximum resident capacity of 200.
Facilities like The Palisades will have to upgrade their systems, since the new regulations mandated that all retirement homes in the province must have automatic sprinklers installed everywhere in the building, including all resident’s suites.
Symphony Senior Living president, Lisa Brush says that her company acquired The Palisades building last year, as well as The Redwoods at 2604 Draper Ave.
Since the purchase of the two buildings last year, Brush says Symphony has been working on upgrading its fire safety systems.
Brush says both the buildings, at the time they were purchased by Symphony, had either partial sprinklers or weren’t up to the standard the company would want them to be when looking after frail residents.
“The investors have agreed to put (automatic sprinklers) in at all properties,” Brush says. “As you can imagine both buildings with partial sprinklers, there’s quite a bit of engineering work to be done.”
Although it depends from building to building, partial sprinklers can mean that only some areas or some resident’s suites have automatic sprinklers.
Brush expects the fire and safety systems at The Palisades to be upgraded within the next 12 to 18 months.
Though building owners still have until 2019 to upgrade their safety systems, Messier says a lot of buildings are starting to install them already because they know the liability protection and benefit of having them installed.