Niagara Health‘s extended care unit in Welland complies with Ontario Fire Code regulations that were implemented more than a decade ago, says Welland’s acting fire chief.
Last week, the health system announced that it will be closing the 115-bed long-term-care facility that is home to 87 residents, some of whom have lived there for more than a decade.
The move is the result of extensive and costly upgrades required to meet modern design and fire safety standards, including the need for automatic sprinkler systems, said Lynn Guerriero, president and chief executive officer of Niagara Health.
The more than 50-year-old facility’s provincial operator’s licence expires in June.
Much of the challenge stems from changing provincial standards. In May 2013, the province introduced strengthened fire safety regulations for vulnerable occupancy facilities, including long-term-care homes, care-and-treatment facilities and retirement homes.
The rules were phased in over time and include requirements for improved fire alarm systems, enhanced staff training, detailed evacuation planning and automatic sprinkler systems. For existing long-term-care facilities, the final compliance deadline was Jan. 1, 2025.
Matt Richardson, Welland Fire and Emergency Services acting chief, said the code changes are about protecting people with cognitive or physical disabilities who may be unable to self rescue during an emergency.
Richardson said the changes allowed facilities to apply for an approved alternative solution to the provincial measures, provided the solution still met objectives of the Ontario Fire Code.
He said Niagara Health would have been required to install automatic sprinklers only in certain areas of the extended care unit, and to integrate them into the existing fire alarm system as a separate monitoring zone.
He said he understood retrofitting the unit could be difficult, either financially or structurally.
“I think the compliance window was the province’s way of acknowledging that.”
Niagara Health, in an email, said installing a sprinkler system in a long-term-care home built in 1972 would not have been a straightforward retrofit.
It said underlying mechanical and structural systems were not designed to support modern life-safety retrofits at full coverage without major structural changes. Installing a system would have required intrusive construction throughout resident care areas, including opening walls and ceilings to install piping, control valves and monitoring systems.
“As we experienced with the flood at the Welland (hospital) last summer, in an older building that level of work typically triggers additional compliance issues, expanding the scope and disruption,” the email said. “Because the home is connected to the hospital and the infrastructure is shared, work in one area can also affect adjacent units and broader building systems.”
The hospital system said this type of construction would likely require vacating resident areas as well as hospital patients to be safely carried out. It said it would have also created significant infection prevention and safety challenges in the active long-term-care environment and would have been highly disruptive for residents.
In early 2024, Richardson met with Niagara Health to ask about its plans to bring the building into compliance.
“That initiated discussions about what they could do. I informed them they had the right to apply and submit an alternative solution to me as the chief fire official,” said Richardson, who at the time was deputy chief overseeing fire prevention, community risk and administration.
Following those discussions, a plan prepared by a professional engineer from an accredited firm was presented to him.
“I reviewed it at length, and it met the same level of safety, objective and functional statements of the fire code, and I approved it. It increased what the staff was already doing there.”
Niagara Health said in the absence of built-in fire suppression, the home has operated with a comprehensive fire safety and evacuation plan, regular staff training and drills conducted with the fire department.
“Those measures remain in place as residents are safely transitioned, with flexibility provided to ensure continuity of care,” it said.
Richardson said the province requires fire departments to conduct annual fire safety inspections of facilities like the extended care unit and other such homes, including Rapelje Lodge, Royal Rose Place and Foyer Richelieu, which opened a new facility last year on Promenade Richelieu that meets current safety standards.
“In addition, we have to witness a fire drill to see how staff perform.”
He said if any long-term-care home in the city did not meet the fire code and pass inspections, the fire prevention division could write up inspection orders and take enforcement actions, if needed.
Richardson said there was good collaboration with the hospital system to implement an alternative solution and bring the Welland home into compliance.
Niagara Health said the fire code changes and sprinkler system represent only part of what is required to meet today’s long-term-care standards.
“The building also does not meet current accessibility requirements or modern infection prevention and control expectations, meaning addressing a single issue in isolation would not resolve the broader safety gaps,” it said in its email.
“This decision is not about a missed opportunity or a single upgrade that wasn’t done years ago. It reflects the reality that fully bringing this building up to today’s long-term-care standards would require extensive, ongoing structural and system changes that are not feasible in a facility of this age and configuration, particularly while continuing to safely care for residents.”