Tourists hospitalised in Rome as extreme heat triggers red alerts
Italian doctors are raising the alarm: an increasing number of tourists are being admitted to hospitals in Rome due to heat reaching 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The most common causes are dehydration and fainting. Many cities on the Apennine Peninsula have declared a red alert due to high temperatures.
The Italian Emergency Medicine Association president, Giulio Maria Ricciuto, reported that the number of tourists admitted to hospitals in central Rome, where most visitors gather, has recently increased by over 10 per cent.
Tourists often come under the care of doctors directly from the queues at museums, which are crowded at this time of year. In the Eternal City, the largest number of people are waiting to enter the Colosseum. Crowds also head towards the Vatican Museums.
A major challenge is also the queue of tourists waiting in the sunlit St. Peter's Square to enter the basilica.
While doctors are advising people to avoid staying in the sun until late afternoon during the highest alert level due to temperatures reaching 104 degrees, thousands of tourists, mostly foreigners, continue to visit the Italian capital and stand in queues for monuments and museums, even during the hottest hours.
Many people with symptoms of dehydration are calling for help from the ambulance service. However, more serious cases of cardiovascular complications due to the heat have also been reported, health service representatives explained, as quoted by the media.
List of cities with "red alert"
The health service in Florence is also raising the alarm that local medical facilities are struggling with the side effects of so-called excessive tourism. In the Tuscan capital, crowded by tens of thousands of tourists and where heat alerts have also been in place for a long time, more than half of those admitted to emergency services are tourists.
On Saturday, the Ministry of Health announced the highest red alert for heat, which is in effect in Rome, Florence, Brescia, Campobasso, Frosinone, Genoa, Latina, Palermo, Perugia, and Rieti.
