How can hospitals in the country take the lead in promoting health and sustainability through their food choices? What changes in hospital service and practices can they adopt to reduce their environmental footprint and improve the health of their patients and workers?
Health Care Without Harm-Asia’s Global Green and Healthy Hospitals (GGHH), in partnership with Tzu Chi Foundation Philippines and the Task Force HPH and Environment of the International Network of Health Promoting Hospital and Health Services, will be holding the forum “Healthy Food in Health Care” on August 25 at the Tzu Chi Foundation Philippines headquarters in Quezon City.
The forum aims to promote sustainable practices—from purchasing to serving sustainably grown, healthy food— in health systems. Featured main speaker is international food expert and Tzu Chi International Medical Association’s Global CEO Dr. Chin-Lon Lin. Dr. Lin has led numerous researches demonstrating how the prevalence of serious illnesses like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity can be considerably reduced by switching to a plant-based diet. An author of numerous scientific papers and four books, he is one of Taiwan’s leading health care industry figures in promoting environmental responsibility.
Joining Dr. Lin are some of the country’s experts in food and nutrition: Dr. Cecilia Florencio, former Dean of the University of the Philippines’ College of Home Economics; Josephine Guiao of the Department of Health’s Health Facility Development Bureau; Susan Mañez of the Angelo King Health and Wellness of Adventist Medical Center; and Dr. Ricardo F. Adriano, Jr., President of the Philippine College of Hospital Administrators.
The Global Green and Healthy Hospitals (GGHH), is a worldwide campaign of Health Care Without Harm which mobilizes hospitals and health systems all over the world to work on achieving 10 agenda goals (Leadership, Chemicals, Waste, Energy, Waterm Transportation, Food, Pharmaceuticals, Buildings, Purchasing) in order to lessen the health sector’s ecological footprint. In the Philippines, some of the members of GGHH includes the Philippine Heart Center and the St. Paul de Chartres Health Care Ministry and its 13 hospitals across the country.
To register, call (02) 928-7572 or email Faye Ferrer at faye@no-harm.org.