AMAV VICDOC SUMMER 2023 - Magazine - Page 14
Victorian public hospitals and health services
are responsible for a quarter of the government’s
reported carbon emissions from electricity and
gas use.
I
n keeping with Victoria’s
Climate Change Strategy,
the State Government has
pledged it will source 100 per
cent renewable electricity for all
government operations, including
all Victorian public hospitals
from 2025. The announcement
has been welcomed by many
medical professionals — including
Victorian members of the AMA
and Doctors for the Environment
Australia (DEA) — who recognise
the science regarding worsening
health impacts of climate change.
Australia’s healthcare sector is
responsible for approximately 7
per cent of the nation’s greenhouse
gas emissions. In keeping with the
need for leadership by the health
sector, the AMA and DEA have
released a conjoint call for the
Australian healthcare sector to
reduce its carbon emissions — 80
per cent by 2030 and net zero
emissions by 2040 — to play its
part in meeting the 1.5°C Paris
Agreement target.
Transitioning hospital energy
supply, from harmful fossilfuel based gas and electricity
to renewable electricity are key
recommendations of DEA’s
report Net zero carbon emissions:
responsibilities, pathways and
opportunities for Australia’s
healthcare sector, and are essential
for Victoria to meet its legislated
emissions reduction targets.
Victorian public hospitals and
health services are responsible
for a quarter of the government’s
reported carbon emissions from
electricity and gas use, yet to date
less than 1 per cent of Victorian
public hospitals’ stationary energy
has been renewable in supply. The
100 per cent renewable electricity
pledge for public hospitals by 2025
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AMA VI C TO RIA
New developments in Canberra and Adelaide are
examples for the future with all-electric hospitals
with no reliance on fossil gas.
is an obvious boost on efforts for
the health sector to do its part.
What remains critical, however,
is for Victorian healthcare to
address its large reliance on fossil
gas. As almost half of Victorian
hospital energy use is gas, the
Victorian Government pledge can
be more realistically seen as only
a 50 per cent pledge that switches
hospital electricity use from
coal-fired electricity to renewable
electricity. Our hospitals will
therefore continue to emit large
quantities of greenhouse gas
emissions associated with gas,
undermining the very objectives of
the health sector of protecting and
promoting health.
It is now possible to build
all-electric hospitals with
no reliance on fossil gas. In
Adelaide, the entire Women’s and
Children’s Hospital is planned
to be all electric and powered by
renewable energy and similarly,
the Canberra Hospital extension
will be powered with renewable
electricity.
Despite this capacity, new
hospitals in Victoria and elsewhere
in Australia continue to be built
with fossil gas for heating. This
is particularly absurd given that
these facilities will be functioning
long past 2050, when fossil gas
will likely be phased out. The new
Footscray Hospital, for example, is
planned to have gas infrastructure
installed — and then likely to be
retrospectively removed within
the next three decades — at
exorbitant financial, resource
and environmental expense to
the Victorian community. It is
vital for Victorian healthcare to
pledge for no new gas instillations
or upgrades in hospitals now
and contribute meaningfully
toward net zero ambitions. Some
Victorian hospitals have already
shown leadership in regards to
reducing healthcare’s carbon
footprint, but much more can
be achieved.
Last summer, hospitals and
healthcare staff saw first-hand
the devastating health impacts
of climate change from the
unprecedented bushfires on the
Australian east coast. A study
in the MJA found the smoke
from these horrific bushfires
was responsible for 417 excess
deaths, 1124 hospitalisations for
cardiovascular problems and 2027
for respiratory problems, as well as
1305 presentations to emergency
departments with asthma.
Healthcare sector staff are
aware urgent action needs to be
taken to address the impacts of
climate change. A recent survey
of Victorian healthcare CEOs
published in the Australian Health
Review showed a majority agreed
that climate change is causing
real harm to health and the
environment, with impacts on
patients, staff and services.
It is time for Victorian
healthcare to urgently work to
ensure it does not remain part of
the problem through addressing
its reliance on both gas and
electric fossil fuels.