Sustainable healthcare

Since the healthcare system tends to fixate on curing people and fixing problems that have already been created, it is often difficult to examine the upstream factors leading to disease. This is unsustainable.

Climate change is without a doubt contributing to an increased prevalence of certain diseases, such as respiratory and cardiac conditions and infections. However, when examining even further upstream, it becomes clear that healthcare itself is contributing to climate change. The current standards of practice are wasteful and don’t tend to take into account that resources are limited and environments are being polluted. Even a brief search through the literature makes it apparent how little the detrimental effects of healthcare on the environment are being considered.

Currently, there is hardly any research on sustainable healthcare. When it comes to climate change and health, there needs to be a paradigm shift from a focus on fixing what is broken to preventing what could be.