Health too faces a climate crisis
AS THE world’s focus is on the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this fortnight, it’s important to remember that the climate emergency is a health emergency too.
The World Health Organisation has said that climate change will lead to 250,000 additional deaths by 2030.
Health professionals are seeing the impact of air pollution – we know that there is a link between air pollution and asthma, lung cancer, cardiac arrest, stroke and more.
Extreme weather can be a threat to health and a threat to life. These problems will get worse unless there is action, and all our eyes are on Cop26 in the hope of seeing signs that is about to happen.
The health and care service itself is a heavy emitter and a contributor to other problems leading to climate change, and we need to address that.
We had an opportunity last week to scrutinise the Welsh Government’s decarbonisation programme for health and social care in the Senedd. It was encouraging to hear that things are starting to move in the right direction, that the NHS is showing signs of becoming more sustainable, but there is such a long way to go, from the use of anaesthetic gases, to the overuse of plastics in pharmaceuticals. Asthma pumps have been a major problem, for example, and the way the health estate has been designed and planned.
We know that there has been criticism in terms of a lack of public transport links to the Grange hospital, the newest general hospital in Wales. The health board’s response was that most patients would be taken to the hospital by ambulance!
What we have there is an example of ignoring entirely the environmental problem in failing to think environmentally in planning services. Yes, patients who are very ill will be taken to the hospital in an ambulance, but what about the staff? What about visitors? What about suppliers and all the out-patients who need to be encouraged to leave the car at home and not see barriers put in their place because of a lack of planning? I hope that doesn’t happen with future developments.
We don’t have to act alone here. It’s not Wales operating in a vacuum; we are part of an international effort to seek to address the problem of inappropriate environmental habits and the need to change ways of working within health services.
There are health boards and health institutions across the globe which are committed to supporting “Health Care Without Harm” within the Race to Zero programme of the United Nations. I asked the Health Minister to ensure that the Welsh NHS and our care services are also added to that list of organisations which want to be a central part of the race to net zero.
I was pleased that she agreed to look into my request so that Wales can join Health Care Without Harm’s global green and healthy hospitals network, all working to bring the health sector into the climate movement and expand its healing mission beyond the four walls of its facilities. There is no time to lose.