An alliance of Australia’s peak medical bodies has warned the burden to hospitals and health services are being compounded by a failure to tackle climate change.
President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Dr Jacqueline Small, said recent flooding events across Australia “forewarns increased frequency and intensity of all extreme weather events as a consequence of climate change”.
“This is both an immediate and long-term reality.
“We urge the federal government to move with urgency and ambition on plans for a national climate change, health and wellbeing strategy,” she said.
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