By Brooke Migdon
Story at a glance
- An elderly woman in Canada this summer was diagnosed as suffering from climate change after facing breathing issues.
- Healthcare professionals in the Canadian city where the woman was diagnosed responded by forming the group Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health.
- Record-breaking heat in June is believed to have killed more than 500 people in British Columbia alone.
A Canadian woman could be the first patient to be diagnosed as suffering from “climate change” after doctors said heatwaves and poor air quality brought on acute breathing problems.
Kyle Merritt, an emergency room doctor in Nelson, British Columbia who was responsible for the diagnosis, told Glacier Media that it was the first time in a decade he had determined a patient’s cause of suffering to be climate change.
“If we’re not looking at the underlying cause, and we’re just treating the symptoms, we’re just gonna keep falling further and further behind,” he said….
