Dr Rob Burrell with a single use intubation device
Dr Marty Minehan munching a potato starch tray
WALKING THE TALK ON SUSTAINABILITY ELIZABETH BROWN | SENIOR COMMUNCIATIONS ADVISOR
T
he Lancet has billed climate change as the greatest threat to human health in the 21st century. In many hospitals, specialists are at the forefront of sustainability initiatives, driving culture change with clinical expertise and a desire to make things better for patients, the planet, and the next generation. When it comes to climate change, sustainability and health care, Middlemore Hospital anaesthetist Dr Rob Burrell describes what he sees as “cognitive dissonance”. “You are supposed to be here to help people, but we are creating so much havoc and mess around us by putting piles of crap into the atmosphere and the ground and leaving it for future generations to sort. It’s not acceptable or sustainable.” It is estimated that New Zealand’s health care sector contributes as much as 8% of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and according to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, health is the largest emitter in the public sector. Our hospitals generate a huge environmental footprint as high-end users of gas, electricity, water, and transport. They churn out hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste each year, which are dumped into our landfills. They consume
6 THE SPECIALIST | SEPTEMBER 2020
millions of single-use plastic and plasticwrapped items.
environmental steering group to measure and reduce the DHB’s carbon emissions.
BRINGING CHANGE
At its last audit last year, it had reduced its carbon footprint by 26% through a number of initiatives, including the use of reusable cups, rideshare programmes, reducing anaesthetic gases, and better recycling. It has been recognised as one of ToituEnvirocare’s top carbon reducers for 2020.
But the worm is slowly turning, prodded along by clinicians and hospital staff concerned by the impact of climate change on human health and the environment.
“You are supposed to be here to help people, but we are creating so much havoc and mess around us by putting piles of crap into the atmosphere and the ground and leaving it for future generations to sort.”
In 2011 staff at Counties Manukau DHB took a ground-breaking step and formed an
ICU specialist Dr David Galler was involved from the start and describes it as life changing. “We started off just doing carbon reduction around waste, energy and travel, and it’s turned into a regenerative philosophy which has completely changed my world view.” Standing in a theatre next to recycling bins and cleaner anaesthetic gases, which he successfully lobbied for, Rob Burrell says a lot of progress has been made but there is so much more to do, especially in terms of procurement.
