Climate-smart healthcare: Resilience against climate health threats

It’s not enough for healthcare to reduce its climate impact – the sector must also become resilient to the impacts of climate change and support community health against the associated health risks.

Temperatures in Europe have increased more than twice the global average in the last 30 years (1) and extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, pose not only a significant threat to vulnerable populations but also the very healthcare equipment and infrastructure needed to treat them.

Climate change impacts, including changing disease vectors, are pressuring an already strained sector. These impacts are not future threats – they are already happening across Europe.

Responsible for 4.4% of global net emissions, healthcare is a major contributor to climate change. If the sector were a country, it would be the fifth-largest emitter on the planet. However, European health systems are taking action to address these carbon emissions – creating roadmaps for low and zero-carbon healthcare services. (2)

Health systems must also become more resilient to a changing climate. Hospitals and health systems must be prepared to foresee, respond to, and recover from climate-related extreme weather events while decarbonising their operations to protect community health.

Climate-smart healthcare in times of crisis

Climate change strikes at the very core of health systems’ mission to keep people healthy. Individual hospitals and entire healthcare systems are already affected operationally, financially, and structurally by the rising frequency of extreme weather events and this will get worse. These climate-related disasters negatively impact medical imaging, laboratory results, and health professionals’ mental health.

Beyond the immediate impact on hospitals, these events affect whole communities – nearby populations, first responders, local transport, energy networks, telecommunications, and more. Hospitals cannot weather this storm alone – the communities they serve need to be equally prepared.

Climate-smart healthcare resilience

Climate resilience must become an essential feature of any health system’s strategy. Health systems must understand the risks and vulnerabilities their hospitals face due to climate change and make the necessary changes to protect operations, patients, and staff.
Hospitals in Southern Europe, for example, are facing an ever-increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves and need to adapt accordingly by accounting for a higher influx of patients, adding green spaces, energy-efficient cooling systems, and more. At a health system level, there needs to be a plan to coordinate emergencies regionally, ensuring that health services can still operate.

Powerful health and economic arguments support an integrated strategic approach to addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation. Decarbonising the health sector and integrating climate into delivering care will help maintain core functions during crises. Onsite renewables, for example, will reduce emissions and improve energy security.
Preparing the health sector for climate-smart healthcare Hospitals represent critical infrastructure and need to be the last buildings standing during times of emergency. Therefore, healthcare preparedness and resilience must be a top priority for policymakers to safeguard healthcare from the effects of a changing climate.

Every European country must develop a National Health Adaptation Plan and
ensure there are resources to execute them. Two regional health systems are currently piloting a standardised healthcare climate resilience framework as part of the LIFE RESYSTAL project. (3) This framework will help governments to develop adaptation plans, but it is only a first step. European communities may face similar climate challenges, but each health system operates in its own unique context and must account for its specific vulnerabilities and strengths.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic showed that health systems are vulnerable in times of global crises – climate change poses an even more significant and long-term threat to human health and the health sector. To protect community health, we must future-proof healthcare against an unstable and changing climate threatening our health.

References

1. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/02/europes-climate-warming-at-twice-rate-of-global-average-says-report

2. https://noharm-europe.org/issues/europe/operation-zero

3. https://life-resystal.eu/ 

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