School kids in Madrid have been suffering from mild heatstroke in their classrooms this past week owing to this premature heatwave.

A total of 47 children had to be taken to hospital in one day amongst a coming and going of ambulances. A pregnant teacher was also taken to hospital.

What does the Regional Minister of Health suggest? Get the kids to fold sheets of paper up and make fans. Parents and teachers were not impressed.

The fact is that classrooms are not equipped to deal with the heat, as summer weather doesn’t normally arrive until the summer, funnily enough, by which time schools have broken up for the summer hols.

Now this school in particular, called IES Neil Armstrong in honor of the American astronaut, was knocked up in just three months and has… wait for it… corrugated-tin roofs – in other words, you could roast chickens in the classrooms, thanks to the 40+ temperatures outside.

But what really, really, oh so really, gets everyone’s shackles up is that the Madrid Regional Government under the conservatives is driven by corruption with over half of the regional Partido Popular councillors facing jail. The veteran Regional President resigned and the Vice President is languishing behind bars.

So, just the money that has been stolen from the public coffers and hidden away in off-shore tax havens could build half a dozen decent schools equipped with aircon, which is, you might agree, better than folded up pieces of foolscap waved in desperate optimism.

(News: Madrid)