Workplace sickness will surely increase wont it

[Friedbacon35]

With ever increasing termps aibu to think workplace sickness might spike in summer in future

I feel like I can barely do my job during the hottest part of the day felt like going to pass out

There needs to be legal maximum temp where you can just leave work

Tax relief for businesses that install aircon for their workers/customers. Government grants for councils to install aircon in schools and public buildings. Same for NHS hospitals/clinics etc.

Get thinking....we will pay for it one way or another with illness, absence and low productivity if someone doesn't come up with a solution/suggestion.

Because it's simple. Whose work is essential and whose isn't?

The same as during the pandemic.

There are some jobs which are so essential and so risks have to be taken and some where it's not essential so the risks outweigh the need for them to be at work.

The same as during the pandemic.

I was in the UK a couple of weeks ago when it was 36 degrees. It did feel very hot due to no aircon in so many places.

There are still a lot of state schools without aircon in Australia but I can’t remember any time that schools have closed (and it often got to 40 where I grew up). The only time we’ve had a school closure was for extreme bushfire risk.

I can see an argument for sending people home from outdoor or manual labour jobs. But surely for everyone else the solution is to improve the environment with aircon.

As well as no aircon, outdoors I noticed far less shade than I’m accustomed to in Australia. Our town squares would usually either have trees or some kind of shade structure. I said to DH that English architecture is designed to capture sunlight and Australian buildings are designed to protect you from it.

To answer OP's question - yes workplace sickness will increase if we cannot adapt. The UK is humid. and humidity matters.

The body stays around 37°C by getting rid of excess heat. It regulates by sweating, but if the air is already full of moisture sweat evaporates slowly or not at all. Meaning the body cannot maintain that 37°C which is critical.

You don't go from "completely fine" to "hospitalised with heatstroke" - obviously it is a progression back and forth between stages and generally stresses the body out bringing out other vulnerabilities and illnesses, (this is where workplace sicknesses are likely to show up)

The body first tries to compensate: you sweat more, your heart rate increases, and you feel hotter and more tired. Your heart then has to work harder to pump more blood to the skin, while you are also losing fluid and salts through sweating. As dehydration and heat build, you can develop heat stress thirst, headache, fatigue, irritability, dizziness, reduced concentration, and feeling weak. - this describes most of us this past month! 😂

If the heat continues, this can progress to heat exhaustion: (not heat stroke yet) heavy sweating, nausea, weakness, faintness, and feeling unable to carry on.

Heatstroke is the point where the body's temperature regulation starts to catastrophically fail. Sweating may stop, confusion can occur, coordination can deteriorate, and the high core temperature begins damaging organs. It is a medical emergency. People end up in ICU.

All because sweating in humidity is not effective.

Humidity matters. So tired of hearing "but people who live in hot countries!!!" (yes Sandra... a hot DRY country, with an AC culture to boot and/or houses that were build to expel heat not retain it)

Fun fact - it's why dogs are at a higher risk of heatstroke because they don't sweat. They pant, which is even less effective than pointless sweating

Do you have any of that lovely air con by any chance? I understand it makes all the difference 😆

But if the heat is so bad it’s such a risk to life that it is ILLEGAL to work then how can you actually say tough you’re an essential worker so you have no choice? The more “essential workers” get screwed over the less of them there will be in the future.

The other issue is schools. Essential workers also have children. If it’s so hot it’s a risk to life then schools/nurseries are all shut then regardless of “having no choice” those essential workers cannot work. Unless that’s a also tough luck you’re essential so you’ll need to leave your 3 year old home alone that day.

If its so simple who is essential? Because people struggled to agree with this over covid. And if a job is worth the risk of working in the heat then surely we have to start recognising this and paying them accordingly? That will have an impact on prices in the supermarkets for example. What happens when people can't afford essentials? Its never really simple.

There's already tax relief for heating and cooling systems.

The comparison to heat and working conditions in other countries is not a fair one. I’m from a much hotter county. The difference is that firstly if you live in those places, your body is more adapted to persistent heat. And crucially, buildings, workplaces, homes, schools etc are designed and set up for the heat (definitely NOT the case here where barely anywhere even has air conditioning)

There are no easy answers to this, no-one will be happy increasing taxes to pay for installation of air-con in hospitals and other medical sites, schools and other education sites, local and national government offices, prisons etc. Nor would they be happy about the increased costs in the things they buy to install it in private sector sites. Would it be something employers should offer to home workers?

Even if we solved that bit the more air con we install the hotter the outside environment gets, both directly in urban areas and indirectly everywhere.

Oh no, here we go again with people trying to outheat each other 😂

OP I work on the sun and I can't just walk out because it's too hot.

Well I worked in the depths of hell and do you think auld Nick would let me stop working just because the whole place was fire and brimstone?

Think of me, I have to lick the hot tarmacadam roads clean in the midday sun...

Love it 🤣

I'm a trustee of a charity that supports vulnerable people, and we're developing a series of protocols for extreme weather, so that we can keep going but do so as safely as possible, not only for the people we support but the many volunteers who work with us (many of whom are older). We think that having these in place will be helpful, as the ability to think and plan seems to decrease when it's superhot! So, knowing that when it is over 30c, we will re-jig our opening hours, stop using one of the spaces that we use as it can't be cooled down, will steer people to the various "cold spaces" around the town, for example, would be really helpful.

I definitely think this needs to be discussed. Maybe even brining it up will lead to some companies really looking into solutions rather than just saying ‘it’s only a few weeks a year let’s just get on with it’

I was in London last week and the heat was like nothing I have experienced before, on the Tube.

Yes of course some professions are used to dealing with extreme heat conditions but they have training, equipment and clothing for that and know what they are getting into when they sign up to do the job. I don’t think it’s fair to say firefighters work in blistering fires so we should all be able to. I know I couldn’t do that job, and I also couldn’t live in that heat I experienced last week in London.

I’m glad people are talking about it.

I really wish people would stop with the "we just need to get on with it".

The very nature of underlying health conditions is that you don't always know you have them. I have one. It was only found by accident when I was having a check up for something else. Nearly 2 years of tests followed before I finally got a diagnosis. Now, I can firmly say, no I cannot do this or that when the temperature is 30+ because it's dangerous for me. I knew before my diagnosis that I struggled, but this attitude of just get on with it, put me in situations where I was risking my health.

If anybody, teacher, nurse, office worker, builder, starts to feel sick, dizzy and confused then yes, they do need to go somewhere cooler and take action to cool themselves down. Heatstroke is not some mild thing, equivalent to a cold, it can lead to severe brain damage and death. Does this mean that maybe some people would lay it on a bit thick to get out of work? Possibly. But it's not something where anyone has the right to tell someone else, no you need to toughen up! Stop with the judgement.

Milliband doesn't want air conditioners,it uses up too much electricity,my DH who was a vehicle technician,has had both pneumonia and heat exhaustion working in garages with firstly,no heat and then a plastic garage roof..I worked in a hospital in the 1970s, boiler failure, patients were kept in bed ..extra blankets,we weren't even allowed to wear our cardigans. Only my last hospital built in the 1980s had air con.

This drives me bonkers. I was at a pub last week for the England game and despite having aircon they had the doors propped open which meant it was good as useless. Obviously people coming and going can’t be helped, but during the match everyone was remaining inside. Just shut the doors 🤦🏼‍♀️

exactly!
How about firefighters - surely a huge percentage of their work is 'too hot!'
Doctors. Train and bus drivers. People working to make sure the electricity, water and other fuels stay on. Anyone working in a shop. Teachers, child minders, healthcare providers. You only have to look on here for several threads about people moaning when childminders close because it's too hot.

If you think you should just be able to walk out of work OP then that's fine as long as everyone else can do it too. So you walk out but can't get home because all the bus and train drivers have walked out too. You can't drive because the traffic lights are down because the people manning the electricity grid have gone home and the roads are chaos. Your kids are waiting outside school alone for hours because all the teachers have gone home. You finally get home after walking for hours and can't cook anything to eat or even turn a light on or have a shower because, again, no electricity. House is hot and smelly because without electric you can't use air con or fans and the fridge has stopped working so all your food has gone off - oh and the water company staff have also walked out so you can't even flush the loo. No internet either and your water isn't safe to drink because the staff at the sewage plant have also gone home. And your bins haven't been collected for a week because it's been too hot for the refuse collectors to work.

Can't get something from the shop to eat cold because they're all closed. And that's if you're lucky - better hope nobody in your family needs any emergencies services or healthcare.

Sounds fun!

The disruption is the problem. We have good AC at work so I’d rather be there than at home in my greenhouse, that’s not the case for DP. Hopefully there’s solutions coming sooner rather than later, even if it’s a couple of weeks per year the fallout is significant enough to disrupt important systems we all rely on.

there needs to be something done-childcare facitilies closeing will have a knock on affect=at least make it so that there needs to be aircon fitted into every setting

You're all on about nice offices /school buildings/hospitals etc which could potentially have/get air conditioning.
What about those working in huge warehouses or factories? Heat can get insane but no air con there on the "shop floor "
Not sure how it would be implemented in places like that, with all the machinery running etc.
Do they all just down tools and leave if it gets too hot?!

My DF is currently in hospital. There are signs saying ‘do not open windows to ensure the a/c works’ (or words to that effect) well the a/c doesn’t work and patients and staff (and visitors) are melting. They even tried turning all the lights off to see if that helped. Nope. New(ish) hospital so one would expect stuff to work as it was installed. I ended up opening a window so we could actually breathe.

if you act the martyr and carry on then nothing will ever change. Management will just ignore you because they can.

Assuming you're in the medical profession? (As is my wife and she does this also).

All well and good saying "think about the patients" but in the meantime, management are there laughing at how much money they've saved, sticking up 2 fingers behind you're back.

We will need to put aircon into all indoor workplaces. No model predicts it not getting worse. The uk is atrocious at infrastructure but this simply needs to be done especially in hospitals.

Government and local authorities knew climate change and heat waves have been coming, they’ve known for many years.

It’s not up to building users to make themselves ill and put their health on the line because building regulation wasn’t adjusted in time to limit indoor temp. Close the schools, close the hospitals and let staff walk out. Let the government deal with the shit show they’ve created with their inaction and incompetence.

They invested only in winter time building retrofit measures and completely ignored the investment needed to tackle summer time cooling. Shame on everyone who works in government (central and local) who didn’t constantly bang on about our need to prepare for the heat waves that we knew were coming.

My work is cleaning for council buildings, residential areas, care homes, homeless shelters, town buildings and such.

Today I've done/am doing 6 sets of communal areas in flats and a baby unit. All 3 stories high + no lifts. It's not much fun granted.

Been given 3 bottles of water (separately) though, and that's so nice. Honestly it's hot but it's not 'go home I can't work in this heat' hot.

I stop more often, and work a bit slower, and tbf the dusting can wait until next week - no ones going to be so bothered that they can't understand.

I wish people wouldn't talk to me when it's this hot and I'm a sweaty mess.

But I'm not sure what kind of job is completely unbareable? What can't be done in the heat?