France heatwave: hospitals adapt urgently ahead of new hot spell

In France, after a heatwave of exceptional intensity and nearly 1,000 more deaths than normal recorded in the country, hospitals are preparing to face a new heatwave, forecast for the middle of next week.

During the previous episode, healthcare facilities came under severe strain, facing a sharp increase in admissions and a shortage of equipment suited to extreme temperatures.

“This week has been horrific for the entire hospital workforce. Not only for nurses and doctors, but for all hospital employees, who were mobilised 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because we had to find new solutions in a very short space of time. We thought we were ready, but in reality we weren’t,” says Cédric Lussiez, director of the Paris Saclay hospitalin Orsay.

The hospital manager explains that this crisis exposed several weaknesses in the way healthcare facilities are organised and says that lessons have been learned from this event_: “The first, of course, is that buildings need to be adapted. So we started by installing air conditioning. We have also changed the way we store some of our medicines, keeping them in areas maintained at low temperature. We have also reorganised certain departments that are particularly exposed to these very high temperatures. So from today, for example, we are moving the ward for older people to this new hospital.”_

Faced with the emergency, medical teams also diverted some equipment from their usual use. Shower trolleys, normally used to wash people with physical disabilities, were requisitioned to treat cases of severe hyperthermia.

“We recovered some for the heatwave, as well as bathtubs, which we’ve brought in for the SMUR (Mobile Emergency and Resuscitation Unit). We put ice cubes in them and then place the hyperthermic patient inside,” explains deputy hospital director Emmeline Joly.

Sébastien Lecornu has announced €100 million in investment from this summer for healthcare facilities most exposed to the heat. The French Prime Minister has also promised 30,000 air conditioners, with the first deliveries scheduled for the start of next week.

These announcements are nonetheless considered insufficient and too late by the Green party, which plans to table a motion of no confidence against the government in the coming days.

Government spokesperson Maud Bregeon responded on Wednesday, saying that such a move “will not stop climate change”.