My interest in green hospitals got triggered to a whole new level after I saw “An Inconvenient Truth”, the acclaimed documentary by former US Vice President Al Gore. I know that film well; my son edited it and required me to sit through the editing exercist at least 50 times before we finalized it to screen it at our “Practicing Green Healthcare“ Convention in June last year.
Hospitals are mammoth energy guzzlers: think of it: they are highly engineered, centrally air conditioned, monstrous blocks of building at full capacity running 24 x 7 x 365 hours. That kind of structure ends up spending Rs 500 per bed per day on electricity, which means a large, 350 bed hospital in Mumbai can spend Rs 75 Lacs per month!!!!! This problem gets worse: our unmindful quest for glamorous buildings leads us to prefer glass facades, and that too in cities like Delhi and Jaipur where peak summer temperatures can soar to 50oC. This itself increases the internal heat load of the building by whopping 30%!!!!!! Shocked? I have been narrating just one statistic, and there is much more unnecessary usage of energy, ranging from use of bulbs and tubelights instead of CFL or LED lighting and electricity fired air conditioning plants and boilers instead of greener fuel like piped gas.
Then again, the lack of simple solutions like water harvesting and the absence of sewage treatment plants makes us use more of already scarce water. Hardscaping an entire landscape with paver blocks further leaves no escape route for water to seep into the ground. Few are aware that central airconditioning plants require huge quantities of water. How much? Upwards of 100,000 liters in hospital with more than 200 beds. Water from sewage treatment plants can easily help provide this water. There is, as is plain to see, an URGENT need for hospital designers to educate hospital owners and inspire them to design buildings with a consideration for pour planet.
Before I sign off for today, just let your mind wander to the old forts and palaces that you must have visited across our country. Now do you realize that the simplest design principles can help us create well ventilated buildings; building so efficient with their air traffic that even in peak summer we feel a cool breeze and have a large pond of sweet water in the basement. I was born and brought up in Rajasthan and have experienced this for myself. Incorporating these ideas into modern day buildings will take just intention and effort: many of these ideas are not just cheap, they open the doors to operating economies. And when a hospital makes priofits, the patients profit.
Dear Dr Desai,
Not only from Green technology angle but otherwise too,I find developing an attitude of avoiding wastages and saving your resources whether Water or others is a dire need of the day when healthcare costs are so high for the Patients.
Hopsitals who are careless on managing their wasteges are so in all areas of their operations-like Inventory management or expensive drug storage/usage–management of staff,
We have NABH,JCI,ISO but despite everything it is the culture in an organization and the Top man–
Hospitals need of power will be difficult to reduce because of emerging tehnologies which are all power dependant–Air Conditioners are one area but CT’s,MRI’s,Linacs,Cath labs are all power guzzlers–
Yes,we need to look at Solar panels and other alternative sources of producing electricity so that coat can be contained–You have raised some interesting points for future Designs and Constructions of Hospitals–let us hope we can implement them since some of solutions are difficult to implement and we Indians,by nature,are not comfortable with Solutions which require hard work to acheive–
Dear Sir.
Green healthcare is indeed needed. But question arises, how geared up are the entrepreneurs to incorporate real time planning from inception level.
How effective are alternative sources of energy , ( when we talk of cost, renewable sources of energy– cost of installation is pretty high. One unit of hydroelectric power will remain below 10 rupees ,. but one unit of solar convertible electric would be no less than 15 to 20 rupees.
But yes, some initiatives can taken similar to Copenhagen roads, where using public transport is free of cost.. Free bicycle rides are available, Can we think in the same lien something for Indian healthcare, to change the red fuming map of global mapping mark to normal ??
Regards