Amid a heat wave, some daycare centres are struggling to keep cool

The building might smell like sunscreen, but kids at Rainbow Daycare are keeping cool with lots of water play, watermelon, ice cream and air conditioning.

Erin Reid is the operations manager of Rainbow Daycare Centre Ltd. With seven locations throughout the St. John's area, Reid said the kids love the summertime but without proper cooling systems it can be tough on children and staff.

Rainbow Daycare installed mini splits in all its locations last year. Without it, on hot days, the daycare would have to shut down.

Reid said this is a reality many smaller daycares are currently experiencing.

Environment Canada issued a heat warning for most parts of Newfoundland this week. Temperatures are ranging in the high 20s and low 30s with even higher temperatures in central Newfoundland.

"You probably got a few hundred children out of care this week because of the environment, you know, like the internal environment, the cooling systems aren't there," Reid told CBC News.

She wants air conditioning to be mandatory for child-care centres, but says the provincial government needs to help. 

"There is no policy right now in this province for cooling systems inside child-care centres. There's policies for outdoor environment concerns like heat, temperatures, things like that but there's no policy regarding cooling systems," Reid said.

On days of extreme heat, kids in daycare can't go outside.

"At certain temperatures we have to come inside. If there's a heat warning from Environment Canada, we have to. It's a violation if we stay out," Reid said.

For facilities with cooling systems, keeping the kids cool is easy.

"They love the fact that they're getting ice cream, watermelon because it's hydrating," said Reid.

But when it's hot and centres don't have cooling systems, parents complain — for justifiable reasons, according to Reid. She said children get lethargic when it is really hot outside.

"How good is that to be there for eight hours a day and you're lethargic and you're not playing, you're hardly eating. You know, that's a very big safety concern," Reid said.

It's not ideal working conditions for staff either, she said.

At smaller daycare centres across the province, buying cooling systems for a short period of time is not an affordable option.

Reid said closing because of the heat makes the smaller centres worse off.

"There's a social media chat with all ECE owners, operators and the complaints all week are heartbreaking. The staff are so uncomfortable," she said.

Reid met with government officials last year to discuss the need for cooling systems in child-care centres but had no luck.

"There's a lot of red tape, and I get it. It's human beings," she said.

"I think the government should definitely step up in this situation because it is a self safety concern."

Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Click here to visit our landing page.