As the heat wave persists throughout Slovenia with temperatures reaching around 35 degrees centigrade, officials from the Human Rights Ombudsman's office have checked the situation in some of the closed institutions only to find out that neither patients in hospitals nor prisoners are protected from the heat.

Temperatures measured in the UKC Ljubljana, Slovenia's biggest hospital, on Wednesday were so high that they pose a health threat, so the ombudsman's office decided to report this to inspection services.

Temperatures were measured in 12 rooms in all three floors of the UKC's main building dating from 1974. The highest temperature was measured in urology and traumatology units, where it reached 29.9 degrees, while the coolest was a room in intensive care unit with 28.2 degrees centigrade.

The hospital said it was planning an AC system for the main building and had also applied to a call for applications of the Health Ministry for the setting up of a system for energy efficiency, but the project is due to be carried out in 2013, according to a report by daily Delo.

Meanwhile, the new neurology clinic building, which the construction company SCT finished only last year, also lacks a central air conditioning system. The clinic's business director Tomaz Pogacnik told Delo that only halls, the intensive care and the neuroradiology have AC.

However, even in these units the cooling is not functioning properly, Pogacnik said. Thus, the temperature around diagnostics devices rose to 20 degrees yesterday, which in combination with the high level of humidity caused malfunctions of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other radiology devices.

Hospital rooms in the building were also very hot with the temperatures of around 27 degrees.

Pogacnik said the air conditioning system had been scrapped from the initial plans for the building due to cost-cutting instructions from the ministry, while now it was unclear whether such a system could be subsequently installed.

Prisoners seem to be also struggling with heat, as the temperatures measured in 28 rooms of the Ljubljana prison topped 30.7 degrees on outside temperature of 34.5 degrees. The lowest temperature measured in the building was 29.4 degrees.

No difference was however noticed in the temperatures of the offices for staff and prison cells, the ombudsman's office said. The ombudsman will nevertheless report the situation to inspectors.