A hospital provides treatment to patients based on their medical condition so they can resume their normal activity following the treatment. It does not aim to turn healthy people into sick ones.
Green hospitals aim to save energy, conserve resources and be environmentally friendly. The focus is mainly on keeping people healthy, not just treating them when they are sick.
The “Green Hospital” concept is based on providing healthcare without causing any harm to the environment and the healthcare worker.
Motives and Goals
In the health sector, the “Green Hospital” is a concept that is beginning to redefine how healthcare facilities are built to protect the environment while saving human lives.
The greater the amount of energy consumed in a hospital, the greater the release of toxic wastes to the environment, causing damage which may put human lives at risk of other diseases and death.
The transformation of hospitals into eco-friendly buildings began by displaying the hazardous healthcare waste as well as harmful effects and then treating them one by one to reach the desired goal. This aims to ensure physical and psychological safety.
Hence began the sanitary disposal of medical waste and the effects resulting from the operation process on the one hand, and modifying practices in workplaces, patient rooms and hospital surroundings, in a way that brings psychological comfort to the patient without harming the healthy.
The shift to constructing sustainable healthcare facilities is largely centred on reducing the carbon burden in hospitals while ensuring that the occupants – staff and patients – are kept safe. More and more hospital administrators are beginning to involve architects in incorporating green concepts into hospital design.
Hospitals utilize more resources and produce more waste materials than most other commercial buildings of a similar size. Healthcare facilities consume more than 315 gallons of water per bed every day and an average US hospital consumes 103.600 Btu of natural gas per square foot annually.
In a typical healthcare centre, lighting, water heating and space heating account for more than 65% of the energy consumption.
It remains fundamental for the construction of healthcare facilities to involve incorporation of green designs and concepts into the process to reduce the impact on the environment, cut down operational costs and increase energy efficiency.
Initiatives to achieve safety
Energy-efficient lighting systems and medical equipment and use of tech-enhanced renewable energy systems.
Daylight exposure and natural ventilation into the environment.
Efficient ways of reducing the air content of toxins and contaminants across all corners of the building.
Capture rainwater from the roof and use it to irrigate the landscaping, a measure, would save 180,000 gallons of drinkable water every year. In addition, the collected rainwater will also be used to operate cooling towers which the hospital uses for their air conditioning system.
Use of high-efficiency windows, super insulated roofs, use of sensors which automatically turn the lights off or on in a room depending on whether it is occupied.
The patient rooms have been redesigned to allow more exposure to natural light and ventilation.
use of non-toxic cleaning chemicals and microfiber mops, discontinuation of use of mercury-containing solutions and medical devices, and use of paper products made from recycled material.
recycling program for lab chemical wastes of toxic solutions, as well as for paper, plastic waste, light bulbs, batteries, and cardboard.
Benefits and Returns
The World Green Building Council groups the benefits of green buildings into three – environmental, economic, and social benefits.
“Green star certification” by the Green Building Council of Australia led to a 62% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions when compared with the average Australian building.
On a global level, green buildings will save as much as 84 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050.
Benefits include cost savings on utility bills, lower costs of construction, a higher property value for estate developers, and job creation.
Building owners note, as reported in a report by Dodge Data & Analytics, that green buildings – whether newly constructed or renovated – created a 7 percent increase in asset value compared to traditional buildings.
Socially, the green building offers a number of benefits to occupants. Studies have shown that workers in green buildings reported a 101 percent improvement in cognitive scores.
To Achieve this define projects
Achieve a paradigm shift to building green hospitals.
Developed the business as well as the engineering methods.
Provide information on the different tools and resources that to access and the initiatives that Hospitals can join as part of the transformative process they are starting.
Education and engagement of people who work in the sector is integral to success.
Training program seeks to offer technical assistance to the government fulfilling its decarbonization commitments under the Health Program.
Binding agreements between the Ministry of Health and Social Protection and Health Care.
Memorandum of understanding to carry out projects that will allow estimating the climate footprint of the national health system at the facility level.
Such project focused on three main pillars
The identification of a representative sample of hospitals and health centres of the health system
Training the teams of those establishments to use the Climate Impact Checkup tool developed by Health Care Without Harm
Technical support so that the establishments that make up the sample can determine the size and composition of their climate footprint.
From data to realization
With the analysis of the data obtained from this exercise, an estimate was made of greenhouse gas emissions from the health sector at the national level.
Based on these findings, a series of specific recommendations will be prepared, which will serve as input for the process of preparing the Comprehensive Sectoral Climate Change Management Plan for the health sector.
More than 50 countries from different regions have committed to developing climate-resilient, sustainable and low-carbon health systems.
Work is underway to design a schedule of activities and advance the implementation of the project to transform hospitals into environmentally friendly.
Here as well the full article by Hospitals Magazin: Green Hospitals – Treating the sick and protecting the healthy
