Heat wave in Spain hits people with disabilities especially hard
Fernando Uceta, 62, who suffers from COPD, following a double lung transplant in August 2022, uses a portable oxygen concentrator backpack with a battery to breathe as he sits in the balcony of his house before going to the Hospital del Mar for a check-up with his doctor, during the first summer heatwave, in Barcelona’s Raval neighbourhood, Spain June 27, 2023. REUTERS/Nacho Doce
BARCELONA — As a heat wave rolling over Spain entered its second day on Tuesday, Barcelona residents disproportionately affected by extreme temperatures due to disabilities were mostly forced to suffer the heat indoors.
Human Rights Watch said in a report on Monday that people with disabilities faced risks of death, physical, social, and mental health distress due to extreme heat, particularly if “left to cope with dangerous temperatures on their own”.
“I stay in bed almost without clothes and the fan turned on its maximum setting,” Fernando Uceta, 62, a Barcelona man who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and received a double lung transplant last August, told Reuters.
During excessive heat, he struggles more to breathe and feels very tired. He also needs to spray himself with water.
“It’s discouraging for me that I can hardly go outside,” said Uceta, who shares a flat with a friend and a cat named “Queen”, explaining he could not afford an air-conditioning unit that would send his electricity bill rocketing.
