Climate control, or not, in nursing homes

Imagine what it must be like to be in a nursing home room that isn’t air conditioned during the long days of this 90 degree summer.

Connecticut doesn’t require air conditioning for the sick and elderly patients in its nursing homes, and 25 of the state’s 240 licensed homes do not have air conditioning in patients’ rooms. A third of the 240 homes are only partially air conditioned.

This information recently came as news to the State Public Health Department, which apparently hadn’t been curious about the conditions at these nursing homes until worried family members of patients asked questions.

Even more disturbing was the department telling The Hartford Courant it was “pleased†to learn that most of the licensed nursing homes say they have “some form of climate control.†It apparently takes very little to please the Public Health Department.

The department didn’t inspect all 240 licensed homes to make certain patients weren’t suffering in this long, hot summer. It simply asked them online and by telephone and then checked a few at random. That means they mostly took the nursing homes’ word for it; the sick and elderly patients are cool and comfortable, except not all of them. For all the department knows, “some form of climate control†could be an oil burner.

It’s hard to believe, but the Legislature, which usually meets in the winter and spring in pleasant, climate controlled surroundings, has never passed a law requiring air conditioning in nursing homes. But in 2003, it did tell the Health Department to “adopt recommendations for minimum and maximum temperatures for areas within nursing homes and rest homes.â€

The agency has not gotten around to it.

William Gerrish, the Health Department’s spokesman, told the Associated Press the department has ignored the legislative mandate for seven years because there is no way to maintain and enforce a required heating or cooling temperature. Regular inspections by people smart enough to read thermometers comes to mind as one way. So does lifting the licenses of state-licensed homes that are repeat offenders.

It’s not that the legislators were disinterested in the plight of their aged constituents. A 2006 research report requested by the General Assembly found that “many nursing homes in Connecticut do have air conditioning, but some have it only in the common areas or hallways or individual patient rooms. Some of the older ones may not have it and the high cost to retrofit an older building would likely be an issue for requiring it. DPH has no statistics on how many nursing homes have or do not have air conditioning†and it took four more years to get the statistics.

The same 2006 report explained air conditioning has not been required because of “the cost and difficulty of installing it in older buildings, many older people’s dislike of air conditioning and the fact that Connecticut has fewer hot days every summer than southern states.â€

Duncan Hunter, the administrator of the Bickford Health Care Center in Windsor Locks, one of the nursing homes without air conditioning in patients’ rooms, told The Courant he’d support temperature regulation only if the state reimburses homes for the cost of installing air conditioning.

Besides, the kindly Mr. Hunter explained, his guests are “not a population that feels the heat too much.â€

Especially if they’re really sick.

Dick Ahles is a retired broadcast journalist from Simsbury. He can be reached by e-mail at dahles@hotmail.com.

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