Key Points
On 31 May, when temperatures reached 47 degrees Celsius, 17 government employees died overnight in the intense heat..
It can go hand-in-hand with the push for specialty hospitals and AIIMs-like institutes, said Dr Dileep Mavalankar, director of Gujarats Indian Institute of Public Health, which has effectively tackled heatwave deaths...
According to recent guidelines by the NCDC, a death must be certified as a heat stroke if the patients body temperature when they collapse or when they are brought to the hospital is 40.6 degrees Celsius or higher...
According to NCDC data, between March and May this year, hospitals across the country recorded 24,849 suspected heat stroke cases and 56 heat-related deaths..
Such deaths are not categorised as heat deaths, even though it was the extreme temperatures that aggravated their condition, he said.. Tiwari added that the worst impacted were people living in poorly ventilated houses with no access to cooling systems..
