Deadly weather: the Aussies killed by climate

More and more Australians are being hospitalised and dying because of extreme weather events, with concerns the coming summer could be our worst yet.

More than a thousand Australians are being hospitalised every year because of the direct consequences of extreme weather, and this year is likely to be the worst ever because of the El Nino effect, a new government report suggests.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) tallied data on hospital admissions and fatalities over the past decade and found extreme heat was sending more Australians to hospital than any other environmental condition, and these admissions spiked during El Nino years.

Those spikes were also getting progressively worse, the report found. In 2019-20 alone there were 1108 hospitalisations because of extreme weather.

But AIHW researcher Dr Heather Swanston said the data was “a conservative estimate” and “a starting point for counting extreme weather related injuries”.

“We captured in our data injuries that were clearly directly attributable to weather events; we did not include injuries that were indirectly related, for example road traffic accidents where the vehicle crashed off road due to wet conditions,” she said.

Fire damage around Dalveen (near Warwick) near the Queensland/NSW border, November 1. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

While admissions for stroke and heart attacks also increased during hot weather, the AIHW did not include those numbers, again because the environmental conditions are not considered directly responsible.

The AIHW data shows 7104 Australians were admitted to hospital for extreme heat related conditions alone over the past decade, while 894 received treatment for injuries sustained in bushfires.

Males were also massively more at risk of heat-related illness, with data from the past three years showing two men were admitted to hospital for a heat-related cause for every one woman. The preponderance of men in outdoor jobs such as construction is just one factor behind the discrepancy.

Extreme heat days in Australia. Source: Bureau of Meteorology,

Of the people recently hospitalised for heat-related conditions, more than one in three (36.88 per cent) were aged over 65, while 22 per cent were under 24.

“Over the past three decades, there has been an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. We are seeing this reflected in hospitalisations and deaths,” Dr Swanston said.

The health sector is bracing for another spike in weather-related admissions over summer, with heatwaves predicted for many regions and bushfires already ravaging some parts of the country.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s most recent climate update said the elevated sea surface temperatures that accompany an El Nino would persist until early autumn.

Dr Kimberly Humphrey from Doctors for the Environment Australia said “cities and communities need heat action plans and early warning systems” for the upcoming summer.

A study comparing 2009 and 2014 heatwaves in Adelaide showed there was a “significant reduction in call-outs for many heat related presentations” in 2014 because of the adoption of heatwave warnings, she said.

Urban green spaces could reduce temperatures by two to three degrees, Dr Humphrey said, while there should also be measures to offset electricity costs for vulnerable groups so they kept their airconditioning on at critical times.

“The impacts of climate change are going to continue to put extreme pressure on our health care system. The problem will continue to get worse. We need to be thinking about adapting our health care systems now, not leaving it to the future,” Dr Humphrey said.