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France pledges to make elderly a priority By Nathalie Schuck, The Associated Press A French Cabinet member said
Monday, September 15 that the government had been stunned by the scope of
devastation in an August heat wave and suggested it couldn't be blamed for
failing to save thousands of lives. The government has faced tough
criticism from doctors, who say it didn't react fast enough when
temperatures soared to 104 degrees and stayed there. Most of those killed
were elderly and weak. "We were caught off guard
by the size, the brutality and the length of the high temperatures,"
Social Affairs Minister Francois Fillon said, testifying at a
parliamentary committee on the heat deaths. "Nobody expected such a
big crisis." But Hubert Falco, minister for
the aged, raised questions about whether he could have done more to save
lives. "Maybe I wasn't convincing
enough, maybe I wasn't persuasive enough," Falco said. "Maybe I
didn't insist enough on the preventive measures that I recommended." The government has said 11,435
people died in the heat in early August. Many died in stuffy apartments,
crowded hospitals and understaffed retirement homes. Citing failings in the system,
the ministers said France had no effective alert plan set up in case of
such crises — a problem health officials promise to remedy. They also
said the many divisions within the elderly care system failed to work
together. The crisis underscored the
problems of an aging society. In 2000, one out of every five people in
France was over age 60, according to the national statistics agency.
Projections show the figure will jump to more than one in three in 2050. Falco promised to make the
elderly a priority. "I want us to make
longevity a national cause and change the way society thinks about the
elderly," he said. Temperatures soared in August
throughout much of Europe. Italy's Health Ministry says at least 4,175
more aged Italians died this summer than in the same period last year. It
has said the estimate could rise to 5,000. Most countries reported death
tolls nowhere near the level of France. The Belgian government, for
example, put the death toll during the heat wave at 150, though it said
that was only a preliminary figure. It was based on a poll of some of the
nation's hospitals and did not take into account those who died at home or
in retirement homes.
Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
