As fires and floods threaten communities and Country across Australia, the column examines how the climate crisis is affecting health and health services in other parts of the world.
Perhaps we can learn from how Canada is using mobile health clinics in response to their wildfires crisis?
We also bring updates on long COVID, news of some global health wins, and a discussion about why ‘Trees are Tremendous’.
Scroll to the end for news of events, awards and opportunities.
The quotable?
… the author has indicated an important problem for the medical profession: how best to utilise the press for the progress of science and the teaching of health, and how to discount the commercial interests which are willing to use a great implement for what is essentially an immoral purpose.”
Climate and health
CNN reports that more than 1,000 people have died from dengue in Bangladesh’s worst outbreak on record, including more than 100 children, with rising temperatures due to the climate crisis driving the ongoing spread as more cases are reported away from dense urban centers for the first time.
Meanwhile, CBS reported that amid flooding in New York City, Brooklyn’s Woodhull Hospital was evacuated and temporarily closed down on Saturday, with more than 150 patients, including 17 in the Intensive Care Unit, transferred out of the hospital, due to power outages.
Recent research predicts that many more Americans will find themselves regularly “stranded” – cut off from essential services, rescue workers and health care – long before flooding actually reaches their homes, according to an Environmental Health News report.
More than 400 wildfires have been reported across Canada since January, which continue as the season turns to autumn. Health authorities say wildfires have already forced around 120,000 people to evacuate, with 26,000 unable to return home, the BMJ reports.
The BMJ article details how mobile health clinics are at the forefront of Canada’s disaster response – buses kitted out as clinics and staffed by physicians, nurses, and outreach and social workers.
Introduced in 1996 to improve access to healthcare for underserved, homeless, or uninsured communities in rural and remote areas, they are now found across many provinces, and provide essential primary care services as well as health education, mental health assessments, vaccinations, and screenings that would otherwise be missed when a population is displaced by disaster.
Stephanie Allan describes how extreme heat induced side effects from the antipsychotic medication she was taking, and how better information could have helped.
Read: Four ways to support someone with dementia during extreme heat 
Read: Tackling climate change: the pivotal role of clinicians, by Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite and colleagues.
Read: How to make “single use” surgical items more sustainable 
COVID updates
Read: Long COVID quality of life and healthcare experiences in the UK: a mixed method online survey 
Read: Long COVID in low-income and middle-income countries: the hidden public health crisis.
The authors write: “As the world shifts its focus from addressing the immediate pandemic crisis and large-scale COVID-19 vaccine distribution towards strengthening preparedness for future threats, it is crucial that we utilise this opportunity to better understand the long-term implications of multi-system viral infections. The long-term burden of disease from what we initially thought was an acute viral illness was not fully anticipated and planned for.”
Read more about the COVID inquiry in the UK from the BBC.
See the rest of Karen Cutter’s Twitter thread 
Global health
See more here.
Watch The Lancet discussion here. 
The rise of the hard right, from New Mexico to Sweden. 
AusPol
From Inclusion Australia, Understanding the Disability Royal Commission recommendations
See the ACEM statement 
Read: Association Between Community Social Vulnerability and Preventable Hospitalizations
See the article on paramedics
See the study: Mortality and cause of death during inpatient psychiatric care in NSW: A retrospective linked data study
Justice
See the article, Call for national system to ensure coroner findings inform Indigenous suicide prevention measures
Media matters
Read the article from 1915: “In her analysis, the author has indicated an important problem for the medical profession: how best to utilize the press for the progress of science and the teaching of health, and how to discount the commercial interests which are willing to use a great implement for what is essentially an immoral purpose.
#CroakeyREAD
Events
Watch the video, Trees are Tremendous
Awards and opportunities
