By Andrea Seaman
Climate change has recently made people suffer in Switzerland, with areas of Zurich reaching 45.2 degrees Celsius, and other parts of Switzerland 42.3 degrees. Some people have complained that they are struggling to work, while others have been reportedly close to collapsing in the heat. At the University Hospital Zurich, the 40-degree heat has made patients’ lives a misery, stopping many from sleeping despite there being given sedatives. Some patients with dementia reportedly stripped naked to cool down.
And yet the strange thing is that this summer the maximum outside temperature in Switzerland stands at 37 degrees Celsius, in a place called Sitten, which is on the other side of Switzerland to Zurich. So what’s going on?
The answer is climate-change prevention. The unbearable temperatures recorded in Switzerland this year all occurred on public transport and within hospital buildings and other workplaces.
In the interests of saving the planet from disaster, University Hospital Zurich (UHZ) has banned air-conditioner use, with the exception of operating theatres and other places in the hospital where cooling is vital. Staff were advised to cool the wards, waiting rooms and public areas by opening windows and doors, putting up screens, and by airing the hospital at night. A UHZ spokeswoman said that the high temperatures inside the hospital, which were at times 10 degrees higher than outside, are not a problem. The ‘sensation of heat’ is nothing but an ‘individual’ feeling, she said. One wonders if she feels the same insouciance towards global warming.
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