General practitioners,emergency doctors and surgeons were among those calling for fossil fuels to be phased out to protect the community from the negative effects of global warming.
Health workers rally outside Parliament House.Nancye Miles-Tweedie
Doctors for the Environment Australia said hospitals were already seeing the impacts of climate change and the government needed to prioritise the health and wellbeing of the community over the fossil fuel industry.
“The WA government must stop adding fuel to the fire,stop new gas projects and contain the escalating health crisis,” GP Tim Leahy said on Friday.
The group also wants subsidies for fossil fuel companies to be axed and more investment in renewable energy.
Doctors and health professionals representing the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons,the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and the Public Health Association Australia were also involved in the rally.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners WA said climate change was a public health emergency.
“GPs in WA and across Australia are already seeing the impacts of climate change on our patients,including from more extreme bushfires,heatwaves,droughts,and storms,which affect both physical and mental health,” a spokesman said.
The groups said evidence showed the number of ambulance callouts were greater on high-heat days,with emergency departments experiencing increased patient presentations for heat-related illnesses and other associated diseases.
They said the burden this placed on the state’s “ailing” health system would increase as the climate warmed.
The rally follows Doctors for the Environment Australia – at the end of an unprecedented–announcing new data showed a rise in heat-related hospitalisations.
The identified 267 hospitalisations from extreme heat and 42 due to bushfires in WA in the two years to June 2022.
Doctors for the Environment Australia spokesman Tim Leahy had said hospitalisations usually increased by about 10 per cent in a heat wave and there was not a spare 10 per cent in the system.
Following this,on Tuesday the state’s Premier Roger Cook and said he was more worried about people in other parts of the world who would “die if they don’t have access to clean,affordable electricity and Western Australia has a key role to play in making sure that that’s available.”
AAP
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