Towards Climate Resilient and Environmentally Sustainable Health Care Facilities

TLDR

Health care facilities improve care quality, accessibility, and affordability, are key to universal coverage, and require action in four areas—human resources with decent working conditions and empowerment, water and waste management, energy, and infrastructure—to provide safe, quality care. The study aims to build climate‑resilient, environmentally sustainable health care facilities that protect community health in a changing climate and optimize resource use while reducing pollution. The authors propose a framework to address these challenges. This work promotes actions that strengthen health care facilities, enhancing efficiency and responsiveness to improve health and reduce inequities and vulnerability locally.

Abstract

The aim of building climate resilient and environmentally sustainable health care facilities is: (a) to enhance their capacity to protect and improve the health of their target communities in an unstable and changing climate; and (b) to empower them to optimize the use of resources and minimize the release of pollutants and waste into the environment. Such health care facilities contribute to high quality of care and accessibility of services and, by helping reduce facility costs, also ensure better affordability. They are an important component of universal health coverage. Action is needed in at least four areas which are fundamental requirements for providing safe and quality care: having adequate numbers of skilled human resources, with decent working conditions, empowered and informed to respond to these environmental challenges; sustainable and safe management of water, sanitation and health care waste; sustainable energy services; and appropriate infrastructure and technologies, including all the operations that allow for the efficient functioning of a health care facility. Importantly, this work contributes to promoting actions to ensure that health care facilities are constantly and increasingly strengthened and continue to be efficient and responsive to improve health and contribute to reducing inequities and vulnerability within their local settings. To this end, we propose a framework to respond to these challenges.