B.C. woman diagnosed suffering from climate change
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Summary
An LCNBC doctor is calling on others in the medical profession to start looking to climate change as the cause of medical conditions suffer due to smoke and heat. In late June, BC was under a heat wave later labeled the hottest and deadliest in Canadian history. Dr. Kyle Merritt, the head of Kootenai Lake Hospital s emergency room, saw the toll of the extreme heat on numerous patients being admitted.
Transcript
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Hello, I'm Melanie Rizdin for the Western Standard.
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An LCNBC doctor is calling on others in the medical profession to start looking to climate change
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as the cause of medical conditions suffer due to smoke and heat.
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In late June, BC was under a heat wave later labeled the hottest and deadliest in Canadian history.
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Dr. Kyle Merritt, the head of Kootenai Lake Hospital's emergency room,
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saw the toll of the extreme heat on numerous patients being admitted,
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especially those who were already dealing with other health issues, reported the Times columnist.
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Merritt met and treated one elderly woman in her 70s.
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She has diabetes, she has some heart failure, she lives in a trailer with no air conditioning,
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said Merritt of the senior patient. Quote, all of her health problems have all been worsened
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and she's really struggling to stay hydrated. As the temperatures rose, so did the number of
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patients arriving at the hospital. In an effort to figure out how to cool people off in the emergency
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department, Merritt reached out to other doctors and nurses in Prince George, Kamloops, Vancouver,
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and Victoria. Merritt said the response was immediate and roughly 40 doctors and nurses banded together to
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form Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health. Merritt was amazed of the growing number of healthcare
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workers concerned how climate change was affecting the health of their patients.
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As the heatwave eventually cleared, it was replaced by a blanket of thick smoke from
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the many BC wildfires that burned throughout the summer, which led to a spike in respiratory
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problems for patients. According to a 2021 Health Canada analysis, the impact of air pollution was the
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highest in BC. The report showed between 2013 and 2018, the 10 census divisions in Canada with the
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highest exposure to fine particulate matter were all found in BC's interior. The analysis also showed
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half of those census divisions across the country contained the highest per capita rates of premature
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death. Merritt said although it's hard to attribute deaths and severe illness to air pollution, BC wildfire
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season changed all of that. For the first time in his 10-year career, Merritt wrote the words climate
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If you're not looking at the underlying cause and we're just treating the symptoms, we're just going
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to keep falling further and further behind, he told Glacier Media when asked why he did it.
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Merritt said he was trying to process what he was seeing and hoped other physicians would read his words on
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the chart and consider connecting patients' health with that of climate change.
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The ER doctor also links the effects of smoke and heat beyond physical health, stating he saw a
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number of patient symptoms worsen who were suffering from depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress
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disorder. The effects on children were also concerning to Merritt, who has three kids of his own and
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questioned the safety of kids being outside in the smoke. In the wake of the deadly BC summer, more than 150
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medical workers rallied at Nelson's City Hall and the provincial legislature in Victoria on November 4th
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to call on the provincial government to declare an ecological emergency and end the subsidies to
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the fossil fuel industry. For the Western Standard, I'm Melanie Rizdin.