Efforts linking climate and health recognized
HCWH President and Founder Gary Cohen and other health care professionals are named Champions of Change in the category of Climate and Health by the US White House. The honor is given to people who are making the link between climate and health, and helping the health sector lead the effort to reduce their contributions to climate change and prepare their communities for the threats to health related to climate change.
Cohen, who is based in the US, has been instrumental in turning the debate on climate change from one of politics to one of health. He has helped build coalitions and networks globally to address the environmental health impacts of overuse of fossil fuels as energy and the resulting need to mitigate and adapt to climate change, with hospitals leading the way.
Cohen has worked closely with hospitals to help them recognize and reduce their own contributions to climate change through burning of greenhouse gases, intense use of energy, and provision of food services. He also encourages health care professionals to speak out about climate change and its devastating health effects, and to lead their communities to both reduce climate change and develop resilience.
”The health care sector can be a very powerful ally in the effort to combat climate change, one of the greatest threats to health facing the world today,” said Cohen. “Because we have been helping the health care sector reduce its use of fossil fuels, conserve energy, and develop anchor institutions for community health, the health care sector is ready to partner with the Administration to help achieve the US President’s climate change agenda.”
Believing that health care has a responsibility to support healthier people in healthier communities, Cohen has urged hospitals to reduce all of its pollution and lead society toward renewable energy, local and sustainable food systems, safer chemicals and other mitigation efforts. He emphasized that hospitals and clinics need to be resilient and self-sufficient—the last ones standing rather than the first to go down in extreme weather events. He called on doctors, nurses, and other health care workers to be powerful spokespeople for policies that understand the true cost of a fossil fuel based economy and support the transition to a renewable energy and toxic-free future.
HCWH is a global coalition of health care workers and systems with regional offices in the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Besides leading HCWH for the past 14 years, Cohen has been a key person in the recognition of health and environmental issues in the Asia region.
“Ten years in Asia and our work on environmental health has moved past beyond waste management in health care,” said Merci Ferrer, HCWH-Asia Director.
HCWH-Asia has paved the way to phase-out mercury devices in all of Philippine health care. The group likewise works in partnership with the Department of Health under the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand on their GREEN and CLEAN Hospital project, a public health collaborative campaign to stop global warming through sustainable and ecological solutions. In Vietnam and Indonesia, HCWH-Asia partners with the government and civil society organizations in phasing-out mercury in health care.
“The work to link health and climate is one that HCWH has committed to take on,” said Ferrer.
Cohen is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal, India, which has been working for over 25 years to heal people affected by the Bhopal gas tragedy and to fight for environmental cleanup in Bhopal. He is also on the Board of the American Sustainable Business Council and Health Leads. In 2006, Cohen received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. He has been recognized by the New England Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with an Environmental Merit Award in recognition of exceptional work and commitment to the environment. Cohen was named by the Huffington Post as a Game Changer in the Healthy Living. He is an Ashoka Fellow.
NOTES: HCWH in Asia
Philippines
HCWH-Asia’s first project in the Philippines was the documentation of the Philippine Measles Elimination Campaign (PMEC) which demonstrated the possibility of conducting a nationwide immunization campaign without incinerating the resulting waste. The project set a global benchmark that was cited in international conferences. In 2006, HCWH-Asia, in partnership with the Health department pushed for the phase-out of mercury devices in health care. The work in the country has now moved forward to embrace other environmental issues in the health setting such as safer chemicals, water, energy, and food.
Thailand
Thailand’s GREEN and CLEAN Hospital is a public health collaborative campaign to stop global warming through sustainable and ecological solutions. At present, 3,442 public health care service units participated in the project and 13 are already successful models.
GREEN stands for the five activities for the project and CLEAN are the five strategies for its promotion.
G – for garbage will promote the use of 3Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle to manage the solid wastes.
R – for restroom deals with improvement in the public health care service to meet Thailand’s public toilet standard.
E – for energy will look into energy reduction and promotion of alternative energy.
E – for environment management to reduce global warming and increase healthy environment. It will deal closely on the promotion of healthy workplace especially in the public health care facilities.
N – for nutrition promoting food safety, organic food and community participation in agriculture activities to minimize chemical substances such as chemical fertilizer and insecticide. It also includes energy savings in transportation.
For strategies,
C – communication through public media to create understanding of the Project.
L –leadership by starting prototype of the Project.
E – effectiveness will measure the target reach and outcomes.
A – activities is engaging participation and cooperation.
N – networking is the connection among project sites to work together.
Indonesia
In partnership with KemI, a Swedish government authority working to control the use of chemicals, and prevent its spread into the environment, and BaliFokus, a CSO based in Bali, Indonesia, HCWH-Asia has piloted ten hospitals for mercury substitution in Denpasar City.
Vietnam
HCWH-Asia, in partnership with the WHO and Vietnam Health and Environment Management Agency, is piloting a mercury phase-out project in a 400-bed hospital in Vietnam.