Six elderly people were admitted to hospital because of health conditions exacerbated by the recent heatwaves.

A health ministry spokesperson said the six patients, all over the age of 60, required hospitalisation between July 1 and 22.

“On preliminary investigation into the reason for admission, these patients were not admitted as a direct consequence of heat-related incidents but because of some form of infection, mainly chest infection, causing fever that dehydrated them quicker because of the additional background heat,” the spokesperson explained.

Malta and Gozo were this month hit by sporadic power outages amid high temperatures, with some localities experiencing power cuts that lasted for more than 20 hours.

At the same time, the weatherman issued a yellow weather warning, as the air temperature was to rise to 36°C.

Enemalta blamed the faults on heat damage to high-voltage cables. To control the situation, Enemalta installed 14 diesel-powered generators in various localities to cope with the crisis.

Times of Malta reached out to the health ministry in the wake of the Superintendent of Public Health’s call for people to look out for vulnerable and elderly people. She revealed that a total of 80 “excess deaths” were recorded during a heatwave that hit Malta last summer.

‘Excess deaths’ refer to the number of deaths from all causes during a crisis above and beyond what would have been expected  under ‘normal’ conditions.

The health spokesperson said there were no reported deaths due to direct effects of heat ‒ namely dehydration and heatstroke ‒ from July 1 to 22.