Extreme weather conditions is putting more in hospital

There is no doubt Australia is one hot country - but how are we at handling the conditions? EVERY STATE RANKED

Queenslanders are the worst in the country at handling the heat, with new data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) showing the state has by far the highest number of heat-related hospitalisations.

Extreme weather events have hit the state hard. From 2019 to 2022, nationally there were 2143 hospital admissions related to extreme heat.

Of those 717 patients were from Queensland, 410 from Victoria, 348 from NSW, 266 from South Australia, 267 from Western Australia, 73 from the Northern Territory, 23 from the ACT and 19 from Tasmania.

There were 60 hospitalisations in the same period related to bushfires – the highest in the country after NSW.

Events linked to El Nino, such as bushfires, are making Queenslanders sick. Picture: Liam Kidston

Australian Medical Association president Maria Boulton said that climate change was having a big impact on health, from waterborne diseases during floods, respiratory illness during bushfires and heat-related conditions during periods of soaring temperatures.

“I’ve worked in Central Queensland and experienced extreme heat there,” Dr Boulton said. “I was in Mackay during the floods and saw people hospitalised due to skin tears getting infected when cleaning up their houses.

“There are so many ways that people can become ill.”

The AIHW data shows that it is not just over 65s who end up in a hospital bed due to extreme heat. There have been hundreds of hospitalisations nationally across all age groups, including children.

The report – Let’s talk about the weather: injuries related to extreme weather – released on Thursday, highlights that the number of hospital admissions for injuries associated with extreme weather, such as heatwaves, bushfires and storms, has increased over the past decade.

It shows that in the 10 years from 2012 to 2022, extreme heat was responsible for most weather-related injuries and that bushfire-related injuries increased during El Niño years.

Extreme weather-related hospitalisations spiked at over 1000 cases every three years, with the spikes becoming progressively higher.

There were 1027 injury hospitalisations in 2013–14, 1033 in 2016–17 and 1108 in 2019–20. In each of these three years, extreme heat had the biggest impact on hospitalisations and deaths. Extreme heat accounted for 7104 injury hospitalisations and 293 deaths in the 10-year period analysed.

The Bureau of Meteorology has declared an El Niño is likely to continue until at least the end of February 2024.