The heatwave currently gripping France is exposing glaring deficiencies in hospital infrastructure. At the hospital in La Tronche, Isère, Camille has just given birth to premature twins in a room where the thermometer reads 42 degrees Celsius. Confined with her newborns in a 17-square-meter space, she describes an unbearable situation: "We've gone into survival mode, we're roasting." This case is not isolated. In many French hospitals, room temperatures exceed 30 degrees Celsius, and can reach 36 degrees Celsius in some departments, while 50 departments remain under red alert for extreme heat.
Rooms transformed into furnaces
The lack of air conditioning in most French hospitals is turning hospital stays into an ordeal for both patients and staff. At Saint-Luc Hospital in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, Belgium, the situation is the same: patients are complaining of stifling rooms, without air conditioning or even fans, with temperatures fluctuating between 33 and 34 degrees Celsius. Faced with this emergency, some hospitals have taken drastic measures by rescheduling non-urgent surgeries to avoid overburdening emergency services and to protect the most vulnerable patients. Several events were also canceled this weekend for the same reasons.
Staff and patients are sounding the alarm
Doctors and patients are raising a collective alarm about the unpreparedness of hospitals to deal with the increasingly frequent heat waves. Healthcare workers are denouncing deteriorating working conditions that complicate patient care, while patients, sometimes already weakened, endure sweltering heat in facilities designed to promote their recovery. This situation highlights a lack of investment in equipment that is essential for ensuring safe patient care during the summer months.
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