European hospitals scramble for ice machines and air conditioning after record heat wave exposes preparedness gaps

At the Paris-Saclay Hospital in the Orsay area outside Paris, emergency staff scrambled for ice during the heat wave's peak, sourcing it from a local fast-food restaurant and supermarkets to fill cold-water baths used to rapidly lower patients' body temperatures. The hospital has since ordered its own ice-making machine. "We thought we were ready. We were not actually," said hospital director Cédric Lussiez.

Dr. Nicolas Gonzales, head of the emergency department, said patients suffering from heat exposure began arriving in a surge on June 20. "It was like a big mountain," he said. "It was like that for seven days." The first case he treated was a 50-year-old man found unconscious at home with a temperature of approximately 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). What followed, Gonzales said, was a flood of heart attacks, dehydration, kidney malfunctions, and other heat-related conditions affecting patients of all ages.

Paris-Saclay Hospital is a newer facility with air conditioning, but three older hospitals in the same group lacked adequate cooling. Medicines had to be kept cool using electric fans and blocks of ice, and student nurses were recruited to help keep patients hydrated. The thermometer reached 33 degrees Celsius (91 Fahrenheit) on the top floor of a psychiatric unit. Lussiez said he is now equipping each floor of that unit with a cool room and moving a department for elderly patients to the newer building.