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Over the last few years, newspapers have reported that migrant workers in the UAE and other Gulf countries have come back with serious cases of kidney related illnesses that can be attributed to long term working in such high temperatures. Most of these employees work in the open, in the construction industry, sanitation, other labour intensive activities where the temperatures may go beyond the safe threshold, hours per day. High frequency of dehydration, absence of shade and rest, and poor access to drinking water may destroy the kidney over a certain period of time resulting in chronic kidney disease or kidney failure. This new trend poses pressing concerns of labour safety, healthcare checks, and climate justice to one of the hottest places globally. Learn more about wages, contracts, and safety rules for migrant workers on our Migrant Workers Rights page.
How Extreme Heat Damages Kidney Health
Prolonged work in extreme high temperatures leads to massive loss of fluid and salts by the human body through sweat. When the workers are unable to rehydrate, their kidneys need to exert more effort to filter dense blood, which leaves the danger of acute injury to the kidneys. Once this cycle is repeated on a daily basis, the damage may be permanent and result in chronic kidney disease or even end-stage kidney failure which leads to dialysis or transplant. The issue aggravates the condition of many migrant workers through heavy workloads, payment systems that are based on pieces, and the fear of the possibility of wage loss when they rest or even when they consult medical care.
Read more: World Health Day 2025: UN and WHO Demand Equal Health Rights for Migrants
Labour Conditions and Responsibility
The migrant workers in the UAE tend to experience power structural imbalance with employers and recruiters which influences their capacity to refuse the unsafe work. There is a complaint of limited shade, lack of enough rest periods, and being pressured to continue working even in times of heatwaves. There are laws prohibiting work outside during the main midday time but the application may not be effective, particularly on smaller sites or to subcontractors. Devoid of effective inspections, complaints mechanisms and safeguarding against retaliations, the workers might feel obliged to work in hazardous conditions, which endangers their health in the long term.
Gaps in Medical Screening and Social Protection
Most migrant workers are subjected to simple medical examinations prior to deployment and they may not get periodic kidney functioning tests in the host countries. Possibly subtle signs such as fatigue, swelling, change of urination, are overlooked or seen as normal tiredness. When workers fall seriously ill and go home, they and their families often have to meet the expenses of long-term treatment, even in cases where illness is related to working conditions. The fact that there is limited health insurance, on one hand, and that there is no documentation of workplace exposure, on the other hand, complicates it to plead in favor, or even to hold employers responsible.
What Needs to Change
The higher heat-safety measures and effective implementation will be needed to protect the migrant workers against kidney damage caused by heat. Mandatory shaded resting zones, regular paid leaves, free access to cool drinking water, and flexible working hours that would not subject them to heat during the midday are the major measures. Workplace health programs should include regular health checking on workers at high-risk, and kidney functioning tests in particular, and make it a matter of referral to treatment. It is also possible that countries of origin and destination negotiate, which will ensure the medical coverage and compensation in case of work-related illness. Finally, with climatic changes of increasing the temperature of the gulf, the provision of labour laws and practices has to be adjusted to avoid unnecessary, life-changing kidney disease in migrant workers. The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for providing urgent healthcare coverage for migrants and refugees in its first ever report on their health.
