Declaration endorsed by institutions representing more than 10,000 hospitals

Bonn, Germany—With global climate negotiations beginning their second week at COP23, leading hospitals and health systems around the world issued a Call to Action for the health sector to play a leadership role in tackling climate change.

Health Care Without Harm delivered the Call to Action to the World Health Organization’s Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during a high-level event on climate and health at COP23. “The health impacts of climate change and the health benefits of climate action are becoming increasingly clear,” said Director General Tedros. “Health care, with its hospitals on the front lines, must be part of the solution.”

Organized by Health Care Without Harm and its Global Green and Healthy Hospitals Network, 137 institutions in 33 countries, representing the interests of more than 10,100 hospitals and health centers have joined the Health Care Call to Action on Climate Change.

Scott Slotterback, Policy Director for Global Green and Healthy Hospitals (GGHH), a program of Health Care Without Harm, and four sustainability leaders from GGHH members were among the ten winners in the Sustainability Category of the 2017 “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” Award. The GGHH member representatives include: Ahmed Idhammad (Head of Sustainable Development, Mohammed VI University Hospital of Marrakesh, Morocco), Gustav Eriksson (Head of Environmental Department at Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden), Sonia Roschnik (Sustainable Health Advisor, Previous Head of Unit to the NHS England SDU, United Kingdom) and Douwe Kiestra, President, International Federation of Hospital Engineering). In addition, Jon Utech, (Director of the Office for a Healthy Environment at the Cleveland Clinic, USA), a member of GGHH’s partner program Practice Greenhealth is also winning the award.

GGHH’s Policy Director, Scott Slotterback, was interviewed about the role of the health care sector in addressing climate change at the Australasian College of Health Service Management/ Australian Council on Healthcare Standards Asia-Pacific Health Leadership Congress in Sydney that took place on 27-29 September.