Risks to elderly as Rome bakes in heatwave

ROME - Amidst warnings of 35 degree temperature peaks in the city centre this week, an urgent call has been made to the citizens of Rome to help and take care of the vulnerable. 
 
  The Sant'Egidio community, which runs the "Viva gli Anziani" (Long live the elderly) programme, names the heatwave as an "emergency", and has implored all citizens to help those who live "in situations of vulnerability, solitude and isolation."
 
  The programme, aimed at the over 75s, consists of regular telephone calls, home visits, and the setting-up of a care network in the four areas of Rome - Testaccio, Trastevere, Monti and Esquilino. The programme also distributes leaflets in these areas to advise the elderly how best to deal with the heat. 
 
  The programme was launched back in 2004, after a shocking 70,000 people died across Europe in the 2003 heatwave, the majority of these being elderly. The programme, in anticipation of the forthcoming heatwave, held a press conference Thursday to spread their urgent message and to ask for help in the upcoming summer months.
 
  The Sant'Egidio community's President, Marco Impagliazzo, hosting the press conference, urged that Rome's citizens and volunteers "carried out a moral and spiritual rebirth, as called for by Pope Francis, with an increased attention given to those who are more in need of care." 
 
  The programme boasts positive results from previous years, with a ten percent reduction in hospitalisation in those areas. As such, Impagliazzo is calling for the programme to be set up in other areas of Rome, citing the thousands of vulnerable people across the city who still do not receive support, with the programme solely reaching three percent of the Roman elderly population. 
 
The programme, whose slogan this year is "the weak also have a right to summer", urge citizens to take more notice and care of elderly neighbours, or simply those who they pass on the street. The elderly often experience more isolation in the summer months because of neighbours, and other members of their community, leaving to go on holiday during the summer.