FILE - A father tries to calm his daughter suffering from a heat-related ailment as she is brought to the government district hospital in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh state, India, June 19, 2023. The official number of heat deaths listed in government reports barely scratches the surface of the true toll and that’s affecting future preparations for similar swelters, according to public health experts.
“Most doctors just record the immediate cause of death and attribution to environmental triggers like heat are not recorded,” Reddy said. That’s because heat deaths can be classified as exertional or non-exertional: Exertional is when a person dies due to direct exposure to high temperatures and non-exertional is when young children, older people or people with pre-existing health conditions become seriously ill or sometimes die from the heat, even if indoors.
The heat plan included measures like increasing access to shaded areas for outdoor workers, converting relatively cool public buildings to temporary shelters for people without homes or access to electricity and ensuring hospitals have adequate medical supplies and staff during heat waves. But he said the lack of data elsewhere makes it difficult to replicate the results in Ahmedabad on a national level.