collapse of health facilities, fires, dead. As well as a series of errors and emergencies of varying magnitude, from planes failing to land on a hot runway to cities without power as extreme temperatures melt underground cables. the wave of heat in short, the center-south of Italy becomes a comprehensive emergency. And while the thermometer is expected to drop from Thursday, offering a truce, there are still sixteen cities with “red dots.”
Heat record, 48 fires in Sicily. Blackout in Catania. Record in Sardinia: reached 48 degrees in Jerzu
HEALTH CARE
After the pandemic, therefore, I emergency room They are once again at risk of collapse, despite the diseases linked to high temperatures that recur every year. The Italian Federation of Health and Hospitals (Fiaso) calculates an average increase in visits of 30 percent. According to Simeu’s (Italian Society of Emergency and Emergency Medicine) calculations, diagnoses classified as “heat stroke” represent 4% of the total number of visits to the ER. Pathologies aggravated or exacerbated by extreme heat are 8% of the total; Some two thousand people go to the emergency room daily for heat stroke and 4,600 for an indirect effect of heat on other pathologies. Not to mention intestinal infections caused by viruses and bacteria that spread through food exposed to sudden changes in temperature. And so the different health establishments try to resort to coverage, as they can.
“All the companies have designed the welfare and service plans in relation to the number of residents during the summer season – assures the president of Fiaso, Giovanni Migliore – Obviously we observe an irregular situation and in some areas there are greater difficulties”. In reality, strengthening the hospital network is not easy at all, given that the shortage of doctors and nurses is compounded in this period by the reduction of outpatient clinics or wards due to health personnel vacations. “Not only are we not reducing activity, but we are loading the shifts and workload of the doctors who are operating to allow others to go on vacation – responds Fabio De Iaco, president of Simeu – Especially in the emergencies of the tourist complexes, an increase in personnel would be needed, but almost never.
And then you try to ask for help from family doctors. “To avoid urgent recourse to the hospital, the support of local services must not be lacking, otherwise the situation will become critical – warns Migliore – General practitioners and pediatricians of free choice must be the armed wing of health care”. However, in summer the only garrison open is still the emergency room. “85 percent of all heat-related illnesses can be easily prevented through responsible and conscious conduct – assures Mario Balzanelli, president of the Italian Society of the 118 system (Sis 118) – And instead, the number of requests received by the operations center from June to today has increased by 25-26 percent. We received calls from a user who also feels bad from the heat. In particular, the elderly, who are still determined to leave home at sun, thinking that they can carry out ordinary activities. But after a few meters they feel bad and faint. The problem is that in that period they are alone, no one helps them. To counteract the risks from the heat, we will ask the Minister of Civil Protection Musumeci to buy fans for the elderly who need it.”
HEAVY BUDGET
And two of the three victims recorded yesterday are elderly. They are a 62-year-old man who in Sora, in the province of Frosinone, collapsed to the ground in the crowd during a show due to a heart attack that later proved fatal, and a 71-year-old man who, in the Cagliari area, fell ill while driving in a shopping center parking lot in Quartu Sant’Elena. The third victim is a 50-year-old Tunisian who worked as a farm laborer in Montalto di Castro, on the Viterbo coast. The man collapsed to the ground while picking watermelons.
FLAMES AND CHAOS
A reflection of the very high temperatures are also the fires, with several fires – fortunately without victims – reported in Calabria and in Sicily, in the surroundings of Palermo. On the opposite side of the island, in Catania, there is a city on its knees. Which, after the fire that put the airport offside, now has to deal with the absence of electricity and water. The record heat melted underground cables and compromised the operation of lift pumps. Mistakes also in Sardinia: with a tarmac temperature of 47 degrees, Olbia airport had to divert some of the incoming flights to other airports for security reasons.
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in the messenger
