World’s First Patient Diagnosed With Climate Change In Canada

A doctor in Canada’s British Columbia province has diagnosed a patient who came in with breathing trouble as suffering from “climate change”, possibly the first such case recorded till date. The patient was struggling to breathe after the recent wildfires in Kootenays worsened her asthma, reported Canada’s Times Colonist newspaper.

• A doctor in Canada’s British Columbia province has diagnosed a patient who came in with breathing trouble as suffering from “climate change”, possibly the first such case recorded till date.

• The patient was struggling to breathe after the recent wildfires in Kootenays worsened her asthma, reported Canada’s Times Colonist newspaper.

• The Kootenays region in the British Columbia province has seen over 1,600 wildfires this fiscal year.

• Faced with treating the surging cases of heat illness that the physician had seen only in medical school, Dr. Merritt reached out to other medical professionals in neighbouring provinces of Prince George, Kamloops, Vancouver and Victoria, says there port.

• When asked why he chose make the unusual diagnosis, the report quotes Dr. Merritt as saying: “If we’re not looking at the underlying cause, and we’re just treating the symptoms, we’re just going to keep falling further and further behind.”

• Merritt, who went on to put together a collective named Doctors  and Nurses for Planetary Health, hopes that his action will help another physician to establish a more straightforward link between their patients’ health and climate change.

• The record-shattering heat waves in Canada and parts of the United States were responsible for hundreds of deaths. At least 233 people died in British Columbia from the heatwaves.

The emergency condition was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest,worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more intense.

• It was unclear what triggered the dome, but climate change looks to be a contributor, given the heat wave’s duration, extremes, and the fact that it is setting new temperature highs a month earlier than the usual hottest time of year.

• The very high temperatures or humidity conditions posed an elevated risk of heat stroke or heat exhaustion.

• Heat waves were not the only cause of mortality in the region as raging wildfires contaminated the breathable air filling it with suspended particulate matter PM2.5. “If we’re not looking at the underlying cause, and we’re just treating the symptoms, we’re just going to keep falling further and further behind,” Dr Merritt told.

• It was unclear what triggered the dome, but climate change looks to be a Healthcare professionals have now come together and launched an initiative to better human health by protecting the planet. Led by 40 healthcare professionals, the initiative, named Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health, works to inform people about the effects of climate change on health.

• Power outages in extreme weather could cripple hospitals and transportation systems when we need them most.

• Crop declines could lead to under nutrition, hunger, and higher food prices. More CO2 in the air could make staple crops like barley and soy less nutritious.

• Hotter days, more rain, and higher humidity will produce more ticks, which spread infectious diseases like Lyme disease.

• Trauma from floods, droughts, and heat waves can lead to mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and suicide.

• More heat can mean longer allergy seasons and more respiratory disease. More rain increases mold, fungi, and indoor air pollutants.

• Mosquito-borne dengue fever has increased 30-fold in the past 50 years. Three-quarters of those exposed so far live in the Asia-Pacific region.

• Senior citizens and poor children—especially those already afflicted with malaria, malnutrition, and diarrhoea—tend to be most vulnerable to heat- related illnesses.