Climate change jeopardizes health care services, report says
Medical centers around the country say that fires, flooding, heat waves and other extreme weather are increasingly jeopardizing medical services, damaging health care facilities and forcing patients to flee their hospital beds
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Suzy Fitzgerald remembers looking out the windows as wildfire flames surrounded the hospital where she worked.
“We had fire in all three directions,” Fitzgerald recalled. “I thought, ‘Oh gosh, this is serious. We need to get these people out.’”
Fitzgerald helped with the evacuation of 122 patients from Kaiser Permanente’s Santa Rosa Medical Center on that night nearly five years ago, as the blaze gobbled up homes and buildings across Northern California. The hospital, which had filled with smoke, closed for 17 days.
Medical centers around the country say that fires, flooding, heat waves and other extreme weather are jeopardizing medical services, damaging health care facilities and forcing patients to flee their hospital beds, according to a report released Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee.
