Doctor Offers Patient A Super Serious Diagnosis For Her Heart, Asthma, Diabetes: 'Climate Change'
A doctor in British Columbia went full "Green New Heal" and diagnosed his patient with symptoms stemming from "climate change."
The diagnosis, made by Dr. Kyle Merritt, claimed that due to rising temperatures and air pollution — assumed to be a byproduct of climate change currently affecting Canada — his 70-something-year-old patient was experiencing difficulty breathing. Along with other patients on his roster.
Per the Times Colonist report, Dr. Merritt — working out of Nelson, BC — surmised that the conditions from the great outdoors began to trigger his patient's respiratory problems.
What Merritt failed to focus on was the running list of other health problems the woman already had; including asthma, diabetes and other serious issues.
“She has diabetes. She has some heart failure. … She lives in a trailer, no air conditioning,” Dr. Merritt claimed, describing his ailing patient, but keeping the blame on seasonal changes and air pollution — a staple of living in Canada's Nelson province.
“All of her health problems have been worsened,” the doctor said, “and she’s really struggling to stay hydrated.”
With his diagnosis, Dr. Merritt believes that biological evaluations can be determined through social causes. And should be, moving forward.
"If we're not looking at the underlying cause, and we're just treating the symptoms, we're just going to keep falling further and further behind," he said.
The doctor added, "We're in the emergency department, we look after everybody, from the most privileged to the most vulnerable, from cradle to grave, we see everybody. And it's hard to see people, especially the most vulnerable people in our society, being affected. It's frustrating."
The physician stated that until change comes through climate policy reform, the threat posed for the general public will continue to grow — though he believes it's already at fatal levels.
Dr. Merritt cautioned that current conditions, including temperatures reaching over 100ºF, pose enough of a danger to keep children from going outside.
"What do you do with your children? You know, I have three kids, and they're inside, it's summertime, we've just got through COVID," Merritt said. "And they want to go out and jump on the trampoline. So I have to try and figure out: is that safe?"
For the official diagnosis, the doctor scribbled "climate change" on a piece of paper, handed it to his suffering patient — which she later exchanged for 20 mL of potting soil.
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