Health care has a massive carbon footprint. These doctors are trying to change that
"Operating rooms are a pretty small part of the physical footprint of a hospital, but they produce an outsized amount of the waste," Noe Woods, an Ob-Gyn, said.
Hospitals are some of the biggest carbon polluters almost no one thinks about. The American health care system accounts for an estimated 8.5% of the country's carbon footprint. This sector emits climate warming pollution through a variety of sources including energy used to run facilities, transportation, products and what gets disposed of.
Woods struggled for years to get her colleagues to focus on human-driven climate change. "In the beginning it was just so slow, it was so weird and alternative," she said. "A lot of people gave me a pat on the back like, 'Oh, I'm so glad you're doing that.' "
Woods eventually burned out. But two years ago she found a handful of other doctors at UPMC also interested in climate change. They formed Clinicians for Climate Action, which quickly grew to over 500 doctors, nurses and others inside The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center UPMC's 40-hospital system.
"Everyone now, because the world is on fire, everybody's sort of looking at each other saying, OK, now we really do have to do something," Woods said.
The group's members recently got UPMC to phase out desflurane, an anesthetic gas that's 3,700 times more potent than carbon dioxide. They've also reduced cafeteria food waste and cut down on single-use items.
For example, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh switched to reusable fingertip sensors to measure blood oxygen levels. That idea came from Isabela Angelelli, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital and a co-chair of the climate group.
Jodi Sherman, associate professor of anesthesiology and epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine, said unnecessary procedures are a part of the problem. She said they improve hospitals' bottom lines but not patient health.
An influential national hospital accrediting body, the Joint Commission, backed down from a proposal to mandate facilities count their emissions after hospitals complained. For the time being, the commission will offer a voluntary certification in sustainable health care.
UPMC signed a White House pledge to halve carbon emissions by 2030 after Noe Woods and her colleagues collected more than 200 signatures for a letter urging climate action.
The group also asked UPMC to establish a sustainability office to measure and then reduce its greenhouse gas footprint. Woods said she was surprised when UPMC agreed and then actually created the Center for Sustainability.
"It [the center] has names on the doors. It has employees," Woods said. "They are calculating things. It's unbelievable."
The office's latest hire is an energy engineer who will help figure out how to lower UPMC's energy use and source more of it from renewables.
Woods said the momentum to push for climate action has gained quickly among her peers.
"You don't find doctors very often volunteering their time for a cause consistently, persistently, meeting after meeting. Showing up with new ideas, and then another person who's interested (comes) and then another," Woods said. "Everybody cares."
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Not sure if this link will take you there, it's NPR's Good News about Tackling Climate Change. I enjoyed reading some of these stories: increase in pink salmon run, new avocados, and "The Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage on Cape Cod"...a group of older women who dive into the bottoms of ponds on Cape Cod to remove the garbage there!
I just love listening to NPR Classic music while reading my morning news (some good!)
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...the last time that I was in the hospital, I was amazed by all of the plastic waste that thrown out.
ReplyDeleteYes. There needs to be a measurement and then change in that!
DeleteThat's something I wouldn't have thought about.
ReplyDelete