Heat causes 470 deaths and 225 hospitalizations each summer in Quebec: study

High temperatures have a harmful impact on Quebec’s health system, but these weather events are likely to continue due to climate change, according to research from the National Institute of Scientific Research.

The researchers discovered that the impacts on the health system are felt throughout the entire summer, and not solely when the province is hit by three consecutive days of hot weather.

“We really attacked the problem with temperatures that are high all summer, and not just for three days,” explained the main author of the article, Jérémie Boudreault.

Specifically, the scientists wanted to quantify heat-related mortality and morbidity based on five health metrics: mortality, hospitalizations, emergency room visits, ambulance transports, and calls to Info-Santé.

They measured that during each summer in Quebec, high temperatures are associated with 470 deaths, 225 hospitalizations, 36,000 emergency room visits, 7,200 ambulance transports and 15,000 calls to Info-Santé.

According to the research, these health problems occurred during the five per cent of the hottest days of the summer, with nearly 200 deaths, 170 hospitalizations, 6,200 emergency room visits, 1,500 ambulance transports and 3,300 calls to Info-Santé.

Boudreault added that the heat affects all components of the health system, without any exception.

“It is important to have this information in a context of climate change, for example to have adequate personnel to face periods of prolonged heat,” he said. “If we know that calls to Info-Santé will increase, this will allow us to plan and avoid a shortage of personnel.”

Previous studies carried out on the subject in Quebec did not measure the impacts during the periods of extreme heat that lasted less than three days, even if the data showed it still impacted the health system.

Boudreaul said it’s important to look at the bigger picture.

“What message can we send to the Health Ministry or even to the government,” he explained. “Here are the impacts we have and here are what the impacts will be in the future. I think that this really provides a solid argument to say that we need to put measures in place to reduce this burden, which is going to be greater and greater.”

The findings of this study were published by the scientific journal Environmental Research.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews