Supporting environmentally friendly healthcare

WATER and energy saving both play an important part in promoting an environmentally friendly consciousness among staff at Melomed Tokai Hospital as well as advancing the development of a green medical facility.

South Africa is a water stressed country, and the water resources are under tremendous pressure from a growing population, on-going development, pollution, wetland destruction, alien invasive plants and the effects of global warming.

The 2014 Global Risk Report conducted by the World Economic Forum rated “water crisis” as the third-most significant global risk, two places above that of the “failure of climate change mitigation adaption”.

While South Africans have undeniably suffered from the effects of load shedding with the ongoing electricity supply crisis, experts warn that an even larger crisis on our horizon is water supply, which could have unmatched detrimental effects for our country’s socio-economic sustainabili t y, Me l o me d To k a i H o s p i t a l ’ s contribution to the saving of water and energy is accomplished by re-using water from two sources, namely water from the renal unit’s reverse osmosis plant and the autoclaves utilised in the hospital.

The reverse osmosis plant provides at least 10 000 litres of water a day, this water will be used as part of the flushing water system in the hospital, to flush toilets and urinals.

An additional benefit of this water is that the water requires no cleaning processing, thereby providing an energy saving as well.

The water reclaimed from the autoclaves comes from two sources, firstly the condensate produced by the system and the cooling water from the vacuum system.

This water is captured in a tank and is then fed back to the autoclaves.

It is estimated that at least 3 000 litres is saved each day from the autoclaves.

Here again t he r eclaimed water requires no cleaning processes.

The parking area makes use of permeable paving and the water that runs off is collected for re-use.

The reduction of electricity consumption at Melomed Tokai began in the planning stages of the hospital by deigning the facility making use of as much natural light as possible, for both the wellbeing of patients, and the health of the environment by saving on electricity.

The windows have been built to sustain energy usage.

Low- power LED l i ghts are used throughout the hospital as a means to cut down on electricity consumption and motion detectors have been installed to ensure that lights are immediately and automatically switched off when vacant or not in use. Using Cutting- edge heat pump technology, any heat emitted from the air- conditioning system is used to heat water in the plumbing system so that there is as little wastage as possible.

This eco-friendly feature of the new Melomed Tokai facility supports the global warming initiatives, aimed at the reduction of our carbon footprint to preserve the earth for generations to come.