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HOW RAISING OUR VOICES CAN SAVE LIVES Or: the story of how medical students brought the urgent health threat of the climate crisis into the Swiss medical association Text:
Bea Albermann | University of Zurich
While the climate and ecological crises are escalating, wars financed by fossil fuels keep on raging and human health is increasingly threatened, it’s important to share the good news: Our voices matter. In October 2021, the Swiss medical chamber of the FMH adopted a new national strategy on planetary health. A strategy that never would have been written in the first place without the voices of engaged medical students all around Switzerland. Thanks to our ongoing advocacy efforts over the past three years, the climate crisis now slowly starts to be treated as what it really is: a health crisis. In fact, the Lancet even describes the climate crisis as the greatest existing threat to human health.
Three years ago, we asked ourselves: How come, during six years of medical school, in some universities there is not a single mention of the health impacts of the climate crisis? And how can it be that the Swiss healthcare system is even contributing to harmful greenhouse gas emissions? Why would we maintain the status quo, if we thereby endanger the health of all current and future generations? And what if doctors became aware of their responsibility in this crisis, raised their voices and started to act?
Health Advocacy can be fun! Students engaged for Planetary Health all around Switzerland met in Bern in March 2022 ©Health For Future Switzerland 48
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