While the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal returned to an “active watch” level on Wednesday morning, the Douglas Institute has maintained an “alert” level for the current heat wave. The reason for this is that a number of patients being followed by the Institute take medication that prevents them from feeling the heat. As a result, they may forget to hydrate or take steps to stay cool, which leaves them vulnerable.

For close to a week, nurses at the Douglas have called some 3,000 individual patients at risk. Of these 400 are being contacted each day, and 80 receive daily visits.

A reporter from La Presse accompanied nurses Nadia Fortin and Sandra Blanchette on one of these visits on Wednesday afternoon.

Read the article