Europe 1 with AFP 6:45 p.m., July 13, 2022

“We have learned a lot” since the 15,000 deaths of the 2003 heat wave, said government spokesperson Olivier Véran on Wednesday in a nursing home in Sceaux in the Hauts-de-Seine, calling on the elderly to hydrate themselves against to the new heat wave.

“We have learned a lot” since the 15,000 deaths of the 2003 heat wave, said government spokesperson Olivier Véran on Wednesday in a nursing home in Sceaux in the Hauts-de-Seine, calling on the elderly to hydrate themselves against to the new heat wave.

"Escape the heat, seek freshness, hydrate yourself constantly", underlined the former Minister of Health.

"When you're very young, you don't know how to say you're thirsty, when you're very old you feel less thirsty, (...) that's when it gets tricky".

15,000 deaths in 2003

“This heat wave is going to be tough, it will last longer than usual,” Olivier Véran told residents of the Marguerite Renaudin de Sceaux public nursing home, during this thirty-minute visit.

"The worst heat wave in the history of the contemporary era of our country was in 2003, we had 15,000 deaths. Since then, we have learned a lot, we know how to refrigerate rooms in nursing homes, since there are collections of all isolated elderly people so that the municipality, so that the CCAS (communal center for social action) calls them", he underlined at the end of his visit.

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"My message is also a message of solidarity that I ask the population. If you know a neighbour, if you have a grandmother even if she is far away, if you know fragile people around you, take the time to go ring at her house to check that she is hydrating, that she is well”, added the government spokesperson.

Véran distills several tips

A doctor by profession, Olivier Véran insisted on "lots of little tricks. We avoid doing sports even when we are handsome" and "we avoid drinking alcohol, especially during the day because alcohol also contributes to dehydration. ".

In this Ehpad de Sceaux, the common areas are air-conditioned, but "there is no air conditioning in the rooms", indicated director Kevin Le Rolland.

"So, in the evening, we say a prayer," joked a resident, Francoise Ledigarcher.

“For the moment, the heat is manageable inside the establishment,” said Mireille Leumeni, a medical psychological assistant.

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