Alexandra Mullins and her son Emmett sit in the playground of his Ottawa public school. Emmett was sent to the emergency room after experiencing heat exhaustion at school last week.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
Five-year-old Emmett Mullins, pale and warm to the touch when he returned from school on Thursday, started vomiting at home.
Emmett’s symptoms were not the result of the flu, but from being overheated: Earlier that afternoon, he had fallen asleep in his hot classroom watching a movie. His mother, Alexandra Mullins, was advised by Telehealth Ontario to take him to an Ottawa emergency room.
At the hospital, Emmett’s temperature and heart rate were found to be elevated, and he was dehydrated. He was given a popsicle with electrolytes and was closely monitored before he was able to return home.
Ms. Mullins has joined a growing chorus of parents, along with teacher unions and health groups, who are speaking out about the dangers associated with sweltering schools – especially during a heat wave that has gripped much of Ontario and southwestern Quebec.
Many schools, including the one Emmett attends in the nation’s capital, do not have air conditioning.
“We are already at a point where kids are going to get hurt,” Ms. Mullins said Monday. “I would be very surprised if there weren’t more kids in the city that ended up with heat exhaustion at the end of today.”
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Record-breaking temperatures on Monday prompted both Ottawa and Toronto to take precautionary measures, including setting up cooling stations, with forecasters anticipating no relief in sight for days.
Christie MacDonald, the emergency services department head at the London Health Sciences Centre, said children and elderly patients are more vulnerable to health effects associated with sweltering temperatures.
Patients can experience a range of heat-related symptoms, such as feeling unwell and being unable to sweat, as well as signs of heat stroke such as confusion and chest pain.
What are the signs of heat illness?
“The heat impacts them dramatically,” said Dr. MacDonald, who advises drinking lots of fluids, and also looking out for family and community members who may not have the ability to get to a cooler area.
Ms. Mullins said that, while the dangers associated with cold temperatures, such as frostbite, are commonly understood, many often think about heat as being solely uncomfortable. There is a need to address how to manage the heat because classrooms are getting warmer because of climate change, she said.
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones on Monday placed the onus of action on school boards. She told reporters that school boards across the province have plans in place, including modifying classroom locations.
“I will leave it to the school boards to make sure they put the pieces in place to keep their students protected, because each school is different and unique for what they are looking at in terms of where the students are best protected,” she said.
In Ontario, there is no maximum threshold for temperature that prompts a shutdown of workplaces established by the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. Educators are encouraged by their school board to protect themselves and their students by drinking lots of water, wearing light clothing and avoiding direct sunlight.
“People are sweltering in the classrooms with the inability to do anything to actually address it, other than go outside and sit under a tree,” said Karen Littlewood, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.
Students and teachers, she added, end up trying to survive the day in the face of scorching heat.
Some parents have opted to keep their children home. Ms. Littlewood said there are staff who cannot tolerate the heat for medical reasons and must call in sick.
“Nobody can work under those conditions,” she said. “Kids can’t learn under those conditions. People go home sick, and then you have other illnesses that are exacerbated by the fact that you have this extreme heat.”
While there is no maximum temperature to force a shutdown, Ms. Littlewood said, educators can call the ministry and action is taken if a classroom falls to 17 C during a cold spell.
Ms. Mullins also pointed to this discrepancy, saying that if a furnace wasn’t working in her son’s school in January, children would be sent home.
“It wouldn’t be given a second thought,” she said.
With a report from Laura Stone in Toronto
