A new report has called on the Australian Government to fund feasibility studies for the electrification of nine pilot hospitals across every state and territory in the nation.
All-Electric Healthy Hospitals: a Cost-Benefit Analysis found that electrifying 10% of Australia’s public hospitals each year from 2027 until 2036 would save $59 million per year in hospital energy bills, and lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking nearly 150,000 petrol cars off our roads.
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Dr Monique Ryan MP and Dr Sophie Scamps MP co-launched the report with Healthy Futures, Lucid Consulting, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, Australian Federation of Medical Women, Doctors for the Environment Australia, and the Climate and Health Alliance.
Healthy Futures co-founder Dr Harry Jennens said, “Electrifying our hospitals will save money in the medium to long term and protect people’s health. If hospitals aren’t beholden to the volatile global price shocks of expensive fossil gas, they’ll have more money to invest in what’s most important—patient care.
“The energy security of our hospitals is paramount, and the reliability of gas supplies is vulnerable to storms and infrastructure accidents that can damage pipelines. This could leave a hospital without heat or hot water, which can have severe consequences for patient care. In Lithgow a few years ago a shutdown in the gas supply forced a hospital to postpone surgeries and patients faced delays in receiving care. Electrifying our public hospitals will strengthen the energy security of our healthcare system.”
The health sector accounts for 7% of Australia’s domestic carbon footprint, with a third of this pollution produced by Australian public hospitals. One third of energy used in Australian public hospitals is derived from burning fossil gas.
Dr Simon Judkins is an emergency physician and Director of Emergency at Echuca Hospital, one of the nine proposed pilot hospitals. Dr Judkins provided emergency medical care in Mallacoota, Victoria, during the Black Summer bushfires.
“Climate change is a public health emergency and hospitals and healthcare workers are on the frontline of it. Climate pollution from the burning of coal, oil and gas is directly driving the worsening of Australia’s deadliest natural hazard, heatwaves, which significantly impacts communities in regional and rural areas, seeing an increase in hospital presentations and admissions,” he said.
“Our hospitals have to operate in increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events. We also need to ensure that hospitals aren’t contributing to this worsening situation by relying on fossil fuels. Electrifying our hospitals would save nearly $60 million a year, but what about the cost if we don’t take this opportunity? What will the costs to our healthcare system be of more frequent and more severe extreme weather events that our hospital infrastructure is not equipped for?”
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The All-Electric Healthy Hospitals campaign seeks $1.5 million in funding from the Federal Government to invest in feasibility studies for a nine-hospital electrification pilot program. The nine hospitals proposed in the pilot cover different climates and metro, regional and remote areas across every state and territory.
