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Ten years after the Manitoba government made a requirement that health care facilities be equipped with fire sprinklers by January 2026, the province is extending the deadline for sprinkler installations to the end of 2028.
“It’s an extraordinary problem,” says national seniors advocate Laura Tamblyn Watts, who says Manitoba should have had the sprinklers in place by now. “A delay back 10 years ago, that was too long to wait then and it’s too long to wait now.”
“We haven’t met a 10-year plan to meet the most basic fire safety needs in health care and especially for places like personal care homes where our most vulnerable population resides,” said Tamblyn Watts, the CEO of CanAge.
A decade ago, a Jan. 19, 2016, provincial government news release said “changes to the Manitoba Fire Code will require automatic sprinkler systems to be installed in all hospitals, licensed personal care homes and residential care facilities in Manitoba by Jan. 1, 2026.”
The move followed a tragic 2014 fire at a seniors’ residence in L’Isle-Verte, Que., that claimed the lives of 32 people.
As of last Friday, Feb. 6, the government amended the Manitoba Fire Code regulation by eliminating the Jan. 1, 2026 deadline and “substituting Dec. 31, 2028” after CBC asked questions about the status of the work.
After repeated requests from CBC News, the government now tells CBC that out of 194 hospitals, personal care homes, and health centres, 117 facilities have full sprinkler coverage, but 77 facilities do not.
The ones without full sprinkler systems are determined to be not in compliance with the regulations.
With construction underway, another 41 sites are scheduled to reach compliance by the end of March 2027, which would make 158 of the 194 facilities completed.
That would leave another 36 sites remaining to be completed by Dec. 31, 2028, the province said.
Fred Douglas Lodge is one of the personal care homes that does not have the sprinkler system installation completed. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)
One location that hasn’t completed sprinkler installation is the 136-bed Winnipeg personal care home Fred Douglas Lodge.
Greg Reid, CEO of Fred Douglas Society which owns the personal care home, says he expects the project to be finished by the fall of 2028, adding he blames the pandemic and cost overruns for delays in getting the work done.
WATCH | Deadline extended for fire sprinkler installations at health-care facilities:
Manitoba extends deadline for fire sprinkler installations at health-care facilities
A 10-year deadline has passed for health-care facilities — including personal care homes — to install fire sprinklers, but dozens still don’t have them. That deadline was extended by the Manitoba government after CBC News started asking questions about the status of the work.
He says work on the project began about six months ago.
“Extending the deadline will mean that most, if not all, projects will be completed. I know ours will be completed by then,” Reid told CBC News.
He said he was not aware of the deadline extension until he learned about it from CBC, but said “I guess I’m not surprised given there are a number of personal care homes in the same situation as us.”
Fred Douglas Society CEO Greg Reid says the sprinkler installation underway at Fred Douglas Lodge will cost more than $5 million. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)
Some personal care homes and hospitals had posted tenders in January calling for bid submissions for installing sprinklers.
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said in an interview that sprinkler installation “is something that should’ve been done years ago. It wasn’t. We’re making sure that everyone’s on the same page.”
“We’ve got the infrastructure we need and the plans in place to get this done and we just changed the timeline to reflect the construction realities and the work that’s being done,” Asagwara said.
In February 2022, the previous provincial government announced spending $280 million for fire safety at personal care homes, hospitals, and health care facilities.
At that time, a provincial news release said the facilities would have “full or partial sprinkler systems installed over the next six to eight years,” implying that some facilities would not meet the January 2026 deadline.