Hamilton doctor’s ‘green office’ plan to help heal the planet is catching on countrywide
Physician, heal thyself? Remember that phrase? Now it's turning into physician, heal thy planet." In Hamilton, many physicians are doing their part.
The Hippocratic Oath that doctors take says First do no harm" but, as Dr. Meghan Davis discovered to her shock, health-care provision is a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 4.6 per cent of Canada's total.
Who knew? OK, doc, so what's the good news?
The good news is great - Davis and her colleagues at Hamilton Family Health Team (HFHT), the largest family health team in Ontario with 166 family doctors and 250 other health care workers, are doing something about it.
They have begun a wide-ranging environmental initiative which models, for health practitioners everywhere, a comprehensive approach to reducing emissions and carbon footprints," and it has received an endorsement from Dr. David Suzuki.
The measures they have instituted in their own practices might seem small individually, but cumulatively they add up to a new way of doing medicine that, if taken up across the country, could mean large-scale environmental improvements.
Much of it is common sense and preventive - encouraging patients to eat better, with a more plant-rich diet, and to engage more with nature; putting more emphasis on screening to get at things early so the treatment impact on the system is minimized. Health teams are encouraged to plant gardens on their premises.
We looked at the evidence for quality patient care in areas like prevention, such as cancer screening and smoking cessation, and how we investigate symptoms and prescribe medication, how we diagnose and treat respiratory diseases," says Davis.
We found synergies to first and foremost provide high quality care that is at the same time greener care or low carbon care. Then we documented this and created infographics, posters, a fun newsletter with challenges and prizes, and other in-office tools for our colleagues to spread the good and great care efforts."
The team's green office" project really started with Davis and some others listening to former Ontario environmental commissioner Diane Saxe giving a talk on the environment and climate change. They came out wanting to make change personally. Davis at the time was taking on a leadership role at Hamilton Family Health Team and asked colleagues if part of that role could be around reducing health care's environmental burden, as it was around this time that she had been reading about health provision's impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
Everyone was on side and she started by doing a pilot project of reducing emissions and waste at Davis's own office, as well as an office in Dundas. I even did a waste audit," she says, right down to weighing the garbage produced.
Her experiment results in a 600 pound reduction of waste each year and new lighting and other adjustments that brought down the utility bill $1,500 a year.
Soon it became clear to the whole team that there was a bigger picture beyond Davis's own office in east Hamilton.
After all, climate change is the greatest threat to global health, according to the World Health Organization," says Davis.
They all worked together to evolve the larger green" initiative, for which they used input from Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.
Now I have non-medical friends tell me they were in their own family doc's office and see the effect of our project," says Davis. For example, there is no longer any examination bed paper on many beds and instead a sign explaining that the paper isn't medically necessary."
A big push along the way came when Dr. Suzuki addressed the team in May at the official launch of the plan, and Davis spoke to him personally, over Zoom.
More recently, as the team's innovative approach finds it legs and gather momentum, there is interest being expressed across the country. The team has been asked to send its information to offices everywhere from British Columbia to northern Ontario.
The spinoffs have been so motivating, too," says Davis. Morale has improved. Not just patients but team members are taking the message to heart and changing their own lives, getting outside more.
Studies show that the more connected to nature, the more we want to protect it."
We should all listen. It will do us no harm.
Jeff Mahoney is a Hamilton-based reporter and columnist covering culture and lifestyle stories, commentary and humour for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jmahoney@thespec.com