Fuel poverty must be tackled to stem illness among those living in cold

Health officials must play a part in addressing fuel poverty because those living in constant cold are more likely to suffer serious illness such as heart disease and childhood asthma and so are a drain on the resources of medical professionals, an expert has claimed.

Simon Roberts, chief executive of the Centre for Sustainable Energy in Britain, told the Energy Action conference in Croke Park one of the major challenges facing those tackling fuel poverty is the need to engage with the health services and health professionals.

He said evidence had been collated in Britain which, not only showed that people living in cold homes suffer from extra health problems as a result, but also supported the case for the health sector to work with others to secure action like insulation, more efficient heating and energy advice to make homes easier and cheaper to keep warm.

Mr Roberts said those living in cold homes were especially susceptible to conditions such as childhood asthma, poor mental health and heart disease.

“We do not expect a GP or public health nurse to pull all the links together for themselves,” he said. “But we do need them to be able to identify situations where they can refer patients to other agencies.

“One example of the effect of exposure to cold living conditions is a thickening of the blood. Cold homes don’t cause common problems like heart disease, but the way the body responds to the cold increases the risk of episodes such as strokes.”

While there are public alerts in England whenever severe cold episodes occur, people are actually more likely to turn on their heat in these situations. “It is exposure to ordinary winter conditions, not snow and ice, that create conditions which exacerbate people’s chronic mental health conditions such as depression.”

“Until health services and health professionals grasp the reality that joining with others to address fuel poverty will ultimately make their own task easier, and help tackle their own health priorities, they are unlikely to engage with the problem in ways which would benefit a large proportion of their most vulnerable patients.”

The conference also heard that despite Ireland having the eighth highest level of households in arrears on energy bills in Europe at 28.6%, it rated only nineteenth in terms of households unable to keep their home adequately heated.

Oliver Rapf of the Buildings Performance Institute Europe said that showed public policy here is more effective in protecting low-income groups. Nonetheless, he said direct financial support to consumers was not as effective as other measures such as deep energy retrofits in fuel poor homes. Mr Rapf said there are 124 million people at risk of poverty in Europe and 50m people actually experiencing fuel poverty. He said with an ageing population, stubbornly high unemployment rates, net household incomes stagnant and energy prices rising, action was needed to defuse this “social time bomb.” He recommended dedicated national programmes to address fuel poverty; prioritising public investment on renovation measures ahead of price control or fuel subsidies; allocating more EU funds to renovation programmes that target fuel poor and low income households.