Nearly half of Quebec private seniors' homes lack generators, Health Ministry data shows

Quebec is considering making generators mandatory in private seniors' homes, more than a week after an ice storm plunged the province in the dark. 

Forty-seven per cent of Quebec's private seniors' residences (RPAs) don't have an emergency generator, Radio-Canada is reporting. Unlike hospitals and CHSLDs, RPAs are not required to have generators.

A spokesperson for Premier François Legault's office, Ewan Sauvé, told Radio-Canada the Quebec government is gathering information before taking action but is "not ruling anything out at this stage." The government is currently looking into which of the province's RPAs lost power during the storm and are without generators, according to Sarah Bigras, a spokesperson for Quebec's  minister responsible for seniors Sonia Bélanger.

Data Radio-Canada gleaned from the Ministry of Health and Social Services shows the shares of RPAs without generators: Montreal (30 per cent), Laval (33 per cent), Montérégie (37 per cent), Laurentians (40 per cent) and the Eastern Townships (41 per cent).

The percentage of residences without emergency power climbs to 70 in the region of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and 77 per cent in the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands.

When the ice storm hit Quebec earlier this month, cutting power to millions of people, the Manoir de Casson, a private seniors' residence in Montreal's Saint-Laurent borough, lost electricity for over a day.

Kira McGee, the residence's general manager, was grateful to have a backup plan.

"When we saw it was getting critical, the generator kicked right in," she said. She said the residence was fortunate enough to have electricity in the common areas, which allowed staff to provide hot food. 

For McGee, a generator is essential to keeping residents safe. In the event of a severe winter storm, a generator would allow seniors — many of whom are unable to descend multiple flights of stairs — to be evacuated via the emergency elevator.

Pierre Lynch, the president of a seniors' rights group, the Association québécoise de défense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées, said he is shocked but not surprised about the number of residences without a plan B.

Losing power for several days like in the case of Manoir Outremont — which went without electricity for 72 hours — is "unacceptable," Lynch said.

He wants to see backup generators in all private seniors' residences as part of the certification process, with government subsidies for those residences with limited budgets.

"When you're paying between 1,800 and 3,000 bucks a month, you have agreed on a certain number of services that need to be delivered," he said, comparing equipping residences with generators to installing sprinklers.

Marc Fortin, CEO of the Regroupement québécois des résidences pour aînés, which represents some 800 owners of private seniors' residences, disagrees that all RPAs need generators.