Hospitals in Europe are gearing up for next heatwave armed with lessons from this one

Ice Urgently and in large quantities At a Parisregion hospital emergency medics needed it to plunge patients into coldwater baths to speedily bring down their temperatures so they wouldnt join the growing tally of dead from a recordsmashing heatwave But lacking an icemaking machine where to get itA fastfood restaurant helped out last week saying the hospital could take its ice Staff also bought ice from the supermarket The ParisSaclay Hospital has now ordered its own ice machine eagerly awaited in the emergency department for a future attack of sizzling heatWhether that hits next week as Frances weather service says it might or in summer months ahead medics and hospital administrators are acutely aware that the battle theyve just endured will because of climate change be followed by others Just as they brace for the annual flu season they know that fighting heatwaves is becoming their new normalSo as they catch their breath from what the director of the public hospital described as a horrible last week he and his staff are also gearing up for the next roundWe thought we were ready We were not actually said the director Cedric LussiezThe hospital was working on a 24 hours a day basis because we had to find new solutions in a very short delay he said We already learned some lessonsHospitals are preparing for more inevitable heatwavesEfforts to plug some of the holes exposed by the heatwave that shifted eastward to other parts of Europe after battering France the United Kingdom and other countries are accelerating on a national level tooWhen France was baking through its hottest days on record last week French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced a 100million euro USD 114million spend from this summer on cooling systems for hospitals and other work to keep wards functioningAnd at the latest in a series of heatwave crisis meetings he said Monday that the government is buying 30000 airconditioning units for health facilities with the first deliveries expected at the end of the week beginning of next weekIts an absolute priority for us that if the heatwave returns the hospital situation be a lot less strained he saidThe World Health Organisation on Tuesday described the heatwave as a dress rehearsal for summers that will be harderEurope is warming at more than twice the global average Heat waves are no longer oneoff freak events it saidEvery summer we fail to prepare for them is a summer we pay for in livesHeart attacks and other heatexposure emergencies surgeAt the ParisSaclay Hospital patients suffering from heat exposure started arriving in a surge on June 20 said Dr Nicolas Gonzales head of the emergency departmentIt was like a big mountain he said It was like that for seven days So it was very intenseIn winter we know well have influenza epidemics and probably COVID as well And now in the summer were going to have the climate crisis he saidThe first patient he treated in this heatwave was an emergency callout for a 50yearold man in a coma at home and with a temperature of about 40 degrees Celsius His family said he seemed fine one minute but was unconscious the next Gonzales said He was rushed to the hospital for critical careThen came the flood heart attacks dehydration kidney malfunctions and other heatrelated problems impacting all age groups from children to older people living aloneHeat is a physical assault It is a physical assault on the body Gonzales said And when the body can no longer adapt or unfortunately is no longer able to fight off that assault you dont feel it coming and the heart can stop beatingHospitals are urgently upgrading heat defencesParisSaclay Hospital is new and has airconditioning but three older hospitals that are part of its group which Lussiez heads arent so well defended against the heat It tested them arduouslyTo prevent medicines from spoiling they had to be cooled with a temporary solution of electric fans and blocks of iceStudent nurses were recruited to help with the work of keeping patients hydrated The thermometer hit 33 degreesCelsius on the top most exposed floor of a psychiatric unit Lussiez saidHes now urgently equipping that unit with a cool room for patients on each floor and organising other renovation works and changes including moving a department for elderly patients to the new hospitalWell be in a better situation next week than we were last week he saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever