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| Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 24 May 2019 |
24 May 2019
09 May 2019
2nd Sustainable Health Care in Aotearoa Forum
It was a useful & informative day at the Medical School in Newtown yesterday for the forum, and the organisers managed to cram 18 presentations and a ministerial address from the Associate Minister of Health, Hon Julie Anne Genter, into the day. This was particularly timely, given the introduction of the Zero Carbon Bill earlier in the day. A few notes from key presentations:
Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health: Opening address on the Zero Carbon Bill, upcoming Wellbeing Budget (which we believe will be world-leading), and the Government’s priority for environmental sustainability are now key drivers of health policy. Noted that hospital builds/rebuilds are a major opportunity to hard-wire environmental sustainability and promote wellness for the people who work in and use the facilities. Minister Genter is pressing him for progress and the Ministry of Health aims to deliver.
Mark McKenna, engineering consultant, Norman Disney & Young (Sydney): Designing & building health care facilities that thrive on natural light, with superb insulation, modern ergonomics and plentiful shared space is both environmentally sustainable but also encourages happier workforces who stay longer. Tying a building into its community and broadening the understanding of what a building is for. As always, stakeholder clarity is essential if expensive rework is to be avoided. Greenstar building ratings are a useful guide to the success of a sustainable build.
A/Prof Cassie Thiel, NYU-Wagner (via Zoom): life cycle assessment and principles of industrial ecology to analyse and improve the environmental performance of medical systems, hospital design, health care practice, and medical technologies. 10% of the US’ total emissions are derived from the health sector, and much US practice is excessively wasteful. Example of Aravind Eye Care System in India that adopts production-line and recyclable process that maximises re-use; tiny environmental impact at 1/10th the cost of US procedures. Also example of Fred Hollows Foundations’ new sustainable procurement strategy. (Probably unaware that Hollows was a NZer).
Dr Richard Jaine, Ministry of Health: Ministry’s sustainability team seems to consist of 1.2FTEs (mostly him). Genter asked MOH to survey DHB sustainability practice; 19 DHBs responded and 16 have a sustainability manager. (Based on the discussion in the room, it may be that these are the only sustainability employees in DHBs). DHB procurement practice highly variable, and none are actively considering measures to adapt to climate change. Only half of DHBs are measuring their carbon footprint. Discussed suggestions for a national sustainable health care unit and green health building standards.
Dr David Galler & sustainability officer Debbie Wilson, Counties Manukau Health: Innovative hospital food systems, Wiri Prison farm initiative, Manurewa High School farm.
Margriet Geesink, NDHB: Surveyed Northland’s decarbonisation efforts. Good progress on EVs and energy efficiency, but Whangarei hospital reliance on natural gas generator (cheap to run, bad for the environment) will be expensive to address. This is a problem across many hospitals. Their three other, smaller hospitals are all full-electric and have a much lower emissions profile.
Andrew Eagles, NZ Green Building Council: The NZ Building Code is drastically below international best practice and achieving change is hard in notoriously conservative industry. The health system can promote change by setting a good example. Healthy buildings are more productive and welcoming for patients and staff.
Ben Masters, BECA: Engineer working on Taranaki Base Hospital expansion. Relying on heat pump technology & hoping to take some other, older hospital buildings off the natural gas generator and switch to heat pumps too.
Johan Rockström & Walter Willett, EAT-Lancet Initiative launch (Youtube presentation, 27 min): ‘The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health brought together more than 30 world-leading scientists. Prof Walter Willett (Harvard University) and Prof Johan Rockström (Potsdam Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre) present the report at the EAT-Lancet Launch Lecture in the University of Oslo Aula, January 2019. The Commission delivered the first full scientific review of what constitutes a healthy diet from a sustainable food system, and which actions can support and speed up food system transformation’. How to build a Planetary Health Diet (hint: more fish, nuts and legumes).
Anna DeMello & Jono Drew, University of Otago: Medical students delivered detailed findings of the environmental impacts of different eating habits, which have a great potential to shape our carbon footprint. To be published later 2019, and created much excitement in the room.
Patrick Morgan, Cycling Action Network: Designing healthy streets and putting humans back at the centre of transport systems. Advocating cycling is about ‘not selling the ingredients, it’s selling the cake’: how good do people feel when they have safe cycling options? Parking allocations displace healthy transport options; streets are the biggest public space in all cities and we should be open about re-envisioning how they are used.
Hon Julie Anne Genter, Associate Minister of Health: Yes, she did cycle to the Med School. Zero Carbon Bill introduced today; urged participants to have their say. There will be major health co-benefits if we achieve zero carbon; we need to measure progress, incentivise positive and healthy behaviour, and stop waste. The Wellbeing Budget, Treasury’s Living Standards Framework, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Developing procurement guidelines and had initially wanted national leadership but MOH preferred to let DHBs innovate and see what works. Minister seemed to now be leaning towards pressing MOH to provide more leadership, because sufficient progress hadn’t been made.
Other notes:
Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health: Opening address on the Zero Carbon Bill, upcoming Wellbeing Budget (which we believe will be world-leading), and the Government’s priority for environmental sustainability are now key drivers of health policy. Noted that hospital builds/rebuilds are a major opportunity to hard-wire environmental sustainability and promote wellness for the people who work in and use the facilities. Minister Genter is pressing him for progress and the Ministry of Health aims to deliver.
Mark McKenna, engineering consultant, Norman Disney & Young (Sydney): Designing & building health care facilities that thrive on natural light, with superb insulation, modern ergonomics and plentiful shared space is both environmentally sustainable but also encourages happier workforces who stay longer. Tying a building into its community and broadening the understanding of what a building is for. As always, stakeholder clarity is essential if expensive rework is to be avoided. Greenstar building ratings are a useful guide to the success of a sustainable build.
A/Prof Cassie Thiel, NYU-Wagner (via Zoom): life cycle assessment and principles of industrial ecology to analyse and improve the environmental performance of medical systems, hospital design, health care practice, and medical technologies. 10% of the US’ total emissions are derived from the health sector, and much US practice is excessively wasteful. Example of Aravind Eye Care System in India that adopts production-line and recyclable process that maximises re-use; tiny environmental impact at 1/10th the cost of US procedures. Also example of Fred Hollows Foundations’ new sustainable procurement strategy. (Probably unaware that Hollows was a NZer).
Dr Richard Jaine, Ministry of Health: Ministry’s sustainability team seems to consist of 1.2FTEs (mostly him). Genter asked MOH to survey DHB sustainability practice; 19 DHBs responded and 16 have a sustainability manager. (Based on the discussion in the room, it may be that these are the only sustainability employees in DHBs). DHB procurement practice highly variable, and none are actively considering measures to adapt to climate change. Only half of DHBs are measuring their carbon footprint. Discussed suggestions for a national sustainable health care unit and green health building standards.
Dr David Galler & sustainability officer Debbie Wilson, Counties Manukau Health: Innovative hospital food systems, Wiri Prison farm initiative, Manurewa High School farm.
Margriet Geesink, NDHB: Surveyed Northland’s decarbonisation efforts. Good progress on EVs and energy efficiency, but Whangarei hospital reliance on natural gas generator (cheap to run, bad for the environment) will be expensive to address. This is a problem across many hospitals. Their three other, smaller hospitals are all full-electric and have a much lower emissions profile.
Andrew Eagles, NZ Green Building Council: The NZ Building Code is drastically below international best practice and achieving change is hard in notoriously conservative industry. The health system can promote change by setting a good example. Healthy buildings are more productive and welcoming for patients and staff.
Ben Masters, BECA: Engineer working on Taranaki Base Hospital expansion. Relying on heat pump technology & hoping to take some other, older hospital buildings off the natural gas generator and switch to heat pumps too.
Johan Rockström & Walter Willett, EAT-Lancet Initiative launch (Youtube presentation, 27 min): ‘The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health brought together more than 30 world-leading scientists. Prof Walter Willett (Harvard University) and Prof Johan Rockström (Potsdam Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre) present the report at the EAT-Lancet Launch Lecture in the University of Oslo Aula, January 2019. The Commission delivered the first full scientific review of what constitutes a healthy diet from a sustainable food system, and which actions can support and speed up food system transformation’. How to build a Planetary Health Diet (hint: more fish, nuts and legumes).
Anna DeMello & Jono Drew, University of Otago: Medical students delivered detailed findings of the environmental impacts of different eating habits, which have a great potential to shape our carbon footprint. To be published later 2019, and created much excitement in the room.
Patrick Morgan, Cycling Action Network: Designing healthy streets and putting humans back at the centre of transport systems. Advocating cycling is about ‘not selling the ingredients, it’s selling the cake’: how good do people feel when they have safe cycling options? Parking allocations displace healthy transport options; streets are the biggest public space in all cities and we should be open about re-envisioning how they are used.
Hon Julie Anne Genter, Associate Minister of Health: Yes, she did cycle to the Med School. Zero Carbon Bill introduced today; urged participants to have their say. There will be major health co-benefits if we achieve zero carbon; we need to measure progress, incentivise positive and healthy behaviour, and stop waste. The Wellbeing Budget, Treasury’s Living Standards Framework, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Developing procurement guidelines and had initially wanted national leadership but MOH preferred to let DHBs innovate and see what works. Minister seemed to now be leaning towards pressing MOH to provide more leadership, because sufficient progress hadn’t been made.
Other notes:
- The planned Q&A sessions were mostly ditched to catch up time when presenters ran over-long, which was fortunate, because the clinicians in the room were poor at asking questions. Instead they preferred long, rambling statements, even when questioning the Minister. NZers in general are poor at Q&As. Facilitators: always remember to pick a female questioner first (most of the air-time went to mouthy males) and specify that all contributions must be brief and all must be actual questions!
- Used ‘Catch-Box’ soft cube remote mic that can be chucked quickly around the auditorium to pick up audio from the floor. Cool but super expensive.
- Wholly vegetarian catering was a good idea, although you do emerge ravenous.
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wellington
05 May 2019
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