‘Way Too Hot’: Britain’s Hospitals Were Not Built for 96-Degree Summers

It was the fifth heat wave of the summer.

By late morning one day last month, the air inside Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham, England, was thick and uncomfortable. Sweat glistened on the faces of staff members hurrying around the sprawling hospital. Patients tossed in their beds.

“It’s just getting to be way too hot; I am saying my prayers waiting for it to stop,” said Celia Burgess, 78, who was in a geriatric unit with two portable fans blowing in her direction. “I mean, they are trying, but it’s not much good. It’s these old hospitals.”

By late afternoon, temperatures in the central English city had reached more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the following day, Nottingham reached 96 degrees. It was the hottest August day ever recorded in the city.

As average temperatures rise in Britain, so do fears that the country’s aging hospitals, built for a cooler climate, are ill equipped to cope. Few have air-conditioning, and many become alarmingly hot in the summer while also struggling with an influx of patients arriving with heat-related problems.

Those who use these facilities are already among society’s most vulnerable and most at risk from the heat, like older people, babies and children, and people with chronic illness.