Emergency medics at Paris-Saclay Hospital outside Paris ran out of ice during the recent record-smashing heat wave. They needed it to plunge patients into cold-water baths to bring down dangerously high temperatures. The hospital has now ordered its own ice machine for future heat emergencies.
The hospital's director, Cédric Lussiez, was blunt about the shortcomings. "We thought we were ready. We were not actually," he said. "The hospital was working on a 24-hours-a-day basis because we had to find new solutions in a very short delay. We already learned some lessons."
Lussiez said the hospital group he heads includes three older hospitals that aren't as well defended against heat as the newer Paris-Saclay Hospital. To keep medicines from spoiling, staff used electric fans and blocks of ice. Student nurses were recruited to help keep patients hydrated. The thermometer hit 33 C (91 F) on the top, most exposed floor of a psychiatric unit. He said he's now urgently equipping that unit with a cool room for patients on each floor and organizing other renovation work and changes, including moving a department for elderly patients to the new hospital.
A Seven-Day Surge
Dr. Nicolas Gonzales, head of the emergency department, said patients suffering from heat exposure started arriving in a surge on June 20. "It was like a big mountain," he said. "It was like that for seven days. So it was very intense." He added, "In winter, we know we'll have influenza epidemics and probably COVID as well. And now, in the summer, we're going to have the climate crisis."
Gonzales said the first patient he treated in the heat wave was an emergency call-out for a 50-year-old man in a coma at home with a temperature of about 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). His family said he seemed fine one minute, but was unconscious the next. He was rushed to the hospital for critical care. The flood of cases included heart attacks, dehydration, kidney malfunctions and other heat-related problems affecting all age groups, from children to older people living alone.
"Heat is a physical assault. It is a physical assault on the body," Gonzales said. "And when the body can no longer adapt — or, unfortunately, is no longer able to fight off that assault — you don't feel it coming, and the heart can stop beating."
Government Response Falls Short
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced a 100-million euro ($114-million) spend from this summer on cooling systems for hospitals and other work to keep wards functioning. On Monday, he said the government is buying 30,000 air-conditioning units for health facilities, with the first deliveries expected "at the end of the week, beginning of next week." He said, "It's an absolute priority for us that, if the heat wave returns, the hospital situation be a lot less strained."
The World Health Organization on Tuesday described the heat wave as "a dress rehearsal" for summers that "will be harder." It said, "Europe is warming at more than twice the global average. Heat waves are no longer one-off freak events," and, "Every summer we fail to prepare for them is a summer we pay for in lives."
The heat wave battered France, the United Kingdom and other countries before shifting eastward to other parts of Europe.
Why This Matters:
The chaos at Paris-Saclay Hospital exposes a deeper failure across Europe: decades of underinvestment in public health infrastructure have left hospitals unable to cope with the predictable consequences of climate change. The WHO's warning is stark — heat waves aren't anomalies anymore, they're the new normal. Yet governments are still scrambling to buy air-conditioning units after patients have already suffered. The 100-million euro French commitment is a start, but it comes too late for those who endured 33-degree psychiatric wards and emergency departments overwhelmed for seven straight days. This isn't just a climate crisis — it's a public health crisis born from political choices. Without sustained investment in hospital infrastructure, staffing, and climate adaptation, Europe will continue to pay for each summer's heat in preventable deaths.