Op-ed by Dr. Cheryl Holder
2023 CHEF Fellow, Founding Co-Chair & Executive Director of FCCA
Published in MedPage Today | November 25, 2024
Anna Mae* faced an impossible choice: either pay her electric bill or pay for her medication. An elderly woman with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, came to me because she couldn’t afford to refill her inhaler. Miami was in the grip of a miserable heat wave, and Anna Mae had been running her air conditioning unit night and day. Now the electric bill was due, and she was in my office looking for help. For many clinicians, Anna Mae’s story is sadly familiar. Many people with fixed or low incomes are still feeling the impacts of post-pandemic inflation and cannot afford to cover their expenses, including energy costs.
As temperatures rise, this budget gap is becoming a matter of life and death. Losing electricity during an extreme weather event, including extreme heat, exacerbates the threat to life. We need to consider a more overarching solution to protect patients.
Extreme heat is the deadliest effect of climate change, killing more Americans than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. Worldwide, heat is responsible for nearly a half million fatalities each year. In addition to causing heat exhaustion and heatstroke, extreme heat can worsen health risks from cardiovascular, mental health, respiratory, and diabetes-related conditions.
And it’s getting worse. The summer of 2024 was the…READ THE FULL ARTICLE>
*Patient’s name has been changed.
Cheryl L. Holder, MD, is an internist and retired associate professor and associate dean of Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. Holder co-founded Florida Clinicians for Climate Action in 2018 and now serves as its executive director. She is co-chair of the Miami-Dade Heat Health Task Force and member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Climate Collaborative.
The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health or its members.
