| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Heat deaths: Chirac pledges action
PARIS, France (CNN) -- French President Jacques Chirac has promised to remedy defects in his country's health service in the wake of the heat wave that has killed thousands of mainly elderly people. The French "alert system must be revised," said Chirac so that it swings into action earlier. "A tragic consequence of this heat wave is that many people of a weak disposition died alone at home," he added. He praised emergency workers, particularly those who work in emergency rooms, and called on French citizens to look after their neighbors, particularly the elderly. The French funeral directors association said 10,416 had died during the first three weeks of August because of the heat wave and projected the death toll for the month from the heat wave would be 13,632. The French government admitted Thursday as many as 10,000 people may have died in the heat wave. France, which normally has temperatures in upper 20s Celsius (80s Fahrenheit) was hit with temperatures in the upper 30s (90s to over 100 Fahrenheit). The organization of emergency room doctors said the government acted too slowly during the first week of the crisis, failing to distribute water, put in place checks on the elderly, or set up cooling stations in a country where air conditioning is a rarity. After the first week of the heat wave, French officials, many of whom had been on vacation, rushed back to work. The death toll soared by 3,000 in that week. In his address, Chirac added: "Today, the time is for contemplation, solidarity and action. I think about each of these victims and hold out my hand and express the solidarity of the nation." Chirac rarely speaks directly to the nation after a Cabinet meeting and tends to rise above day-to-day domestic politics. Observers say Thursday's broadcast shows how defensive his administration feels about the crisis, which has been accused of inaction during the heat wave and the high number of deaths it caused. Jean Neveu of the General Funeral Service, the largest organization of morticians in France, said the heat wave had the same effect as a number of large airplanes crashing all at once. He said funeral home had taken over refrigerated warehouses, called back vacationing workers and even the retired, and extended the hours of crematoriums. He said the catastrophe had been particularly difficult for families because they were forced to bury their loved ones without the usual arrangements provided by funeral homes. The left-leaning Paris daily Liberation carried the headline "Chirac counts the dead" above drawings of Chirac pointing to his prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who was pointing to Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei. The leftist opposition has also demanded that the health minister follow the lead of the surgeon general in resigning, and that there be a full parliamentary inquiry into what went wrong. (Full Story) -- CNN Correspondent Chris Burns contributed to this report
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Many people of a weak disposition died alone at home.
