The health ministry sent a circular
letter to Italy's regional governments on Monday with a series
of recommendations to manage the impact of the intense heatwave
the country is enduring.
These recommendations include setting up a 'heat code' at
emergency rooms with special, priority procedures for people
suffering heat-related health issues.
They also call for the creation of special USCAR units to
provide care for people at home, especially for vulnerable
groups like the elderly, and prevent ER's being overwhelmed by
people going to casualty with problems that could be solved
elsewhere.
The letter tells the regions to boost out-of-hours doctor
services too.
Temperatures are forecast to climb as high as 47° Celsius in
areas of southern Sardinia this week, 45 or 46° in Sicily and
45° in the province of Foggia, in Puglia.
In Rome, which The Times has called "The Infernal City" because
of the heat it is suffering, temperatures are expected to climb
to 42 or 43° on Tuesday.
A study coordinated by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health
and published in the Nature Medicine journal last week estimated
that over 18,000 people died in Italy due to the intense heat
the nation endured last summer.
Scientists say the climate crisis caused by human greenhouse gas
emissions is making extreme weather events such as heat waves,
drought, supercharged storms and flooding more frequent and more
intense
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