‘CLIMATE CHANGE IS KILLING US’
GP warning over climate change play on heat stress
A GOLD Coast GP says she is treating a record number of patients at risk of heat stress – and the blame rests squarely on climate change.
Dr Tammra Warby, who practises at Coomera’s Foxwell Medical, said patients with heat stress symptoms through her doors had doubled in the past two years.
“Every summer is now the hottest ever,” she said.
“We’re getting longer and hotter heatwaves ... and there is data that shows more people have died from heat stress in Australia in the last 100 years than all the floods, storms and fires put together.”
A GOLD Coast GP has turned up the heat on patients who refuse to recognise the dangers posed by “the world’s number one health issue” — climate change.
Dr Tammra Warby, who practises at Coomera’s Foxwell Medical, has recorded a summer spike in patients at risk of heat stress.
Having initially been complacent herself, she said a recent trip to Harvard University in the US had opened her eyes to how much environmental change was already affecting human health: “I’ve been the same as most people thinking (climate change) is a distant thing that isn’t impacting us, but it’s happening now.
“This summer I’ve seen at least one patient each day at risk of heat stress ... a few years ago it would have been two to three times a week.
“I’ve just been to Harvard where they’ve established the Planetary Health Alliance to address what many groups consider the world’s number one health issue. A lot of information about damage to the environment has had the effect of alienating people … we need to take the political factor out (of climate change) because people are over that.
“We need to reframe the conversation and realise we’re talking about people’s lives here.”
Queensland Health data shows hospital admissions due to the “effects of heat and light” jumped from 129 to 200 between 2012 and 2014, with more than 40 Gold Coasters treated at Gold Coast Health emergency departments for heat-related illness in the year to June 2016. “The load on the health system from heat stress in summer is massive,” said Dr Warby, who believes cost-ofliving pressures are also putting vulnerable groups at risk of heat stress.
“This is about your grandmother who can’t afford airconditioning or small children who are dependent on adults to keep them hydrated.
“Every summer is now the hottest ever. Data shows more people have died from heat stress in Australia in the last 100 years than all the floods, storms and fires put together.”
One such example was the heatwave that preceded the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria — the searing heat resulted in 374 excess deaths compared to the 173 people killed in the fires themselves.
The World Health Organisation says heat-related deaths can increase by 2 to 5 per cent for every degree the temperature is above a threshold level, while heat events that currently occur every 20 years are projected to happen every two to five years by 2050.