Hospitals Feel The Heat Too From Extreme Weather And Its Health Impacts

The Conversation - Martin Loosemore | Anumitra Mirti Chand

Cyclone Oswald caused flooding that forced the evacuation of more than 100 patients from Bundaberg Hospital to Brisbane in January 2013. Dave Hunt/AAP

As southeastern Australia swelters through another heatwave, how well equipped are our hospitals to cope with severe weather events?
Hospitals lie at the heart of our ability to manage the significant potential health impacts of extreme weather events. Many people would be surprised to hear that the vast majority of our hospitals have not been designed with these risks in mind. And they have not been adapted to ensure they can maintain healthcare services during such events.
The recent thunderstorm asthma outbreak in Melbourne, which was linked to eight deaths and put 8,500 people in hospital, is a vivid example of the health impacts of extreme weather. Such events can be life-threatening, especially for the aged, obese and critically ill.
Individually, health services workers do a remarkable job in coping with such events. However, the buildings they work in and the infrastructure that supports them often constrain their ability to respond.
Stories of power outages and of sick people waiting hours for beds and patients dying because hospitals were overstretched do not inspire confidence in the health system as Australia faces the prospect of more frequent extreme weather events such as heatwaves, floods and storms.

A map of temperatures like this one for Wednesday, January 11, spells trouble for health services across Australia. Bureau of Meteorology
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Warning bells are ringing

During the 2014 heatwave in South Australia, when Adelaide became the hottest place on the planet, heart attack rates increased by more than 300%. Other emerging extreme weather health risks include asthma from bush fires, increasing waterborne and vector diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and typhoid, dehydration and heat exhaustion, and physical injury from flying debris and floods.

Hospitals need power supplies that remain reliable even during extreme weather events. Dan Himbrechts/AAP

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There are many reports of hospital buildings and infrastructure failing during extreme weather events in Australia. For example, power outages have affected numerous hospitals and back-up systems reportedly failed during the 2004 heatwaves that swept Australia.
During the 2005 Sydney heatwaves, hospitals were swamped. Many people were simply seeking respite in air-conditioned reception areas.
In 2006, Cyclone Larry closed much of Innisfail Hospital. Staff required medical support from Townsville and Cairns hospitals. Herberton Hospital was without power until a generator was provided. Leaking roofs resulted in emergency evacuations.
In 2009, one-in-100-year storms left more than 3,000 NSW residents stranded by floods, many of them old and seriously at risk. Floodwaters isolated Coffs Harbour, Dorrigo and Bellingen hospitals. People needing urgent medical treatment had to be sent up to 80 kilometres away.
Most recently, after super-cell thunderstorms blacked out South Australia, back-up generators failed at an Adelaide hospital. Seventeen patients had to be transferred from Flinders Medical Centre to Flinders Private Hospital.

What are the systemic problems?
These stories are worrying, but perhaps not surprising, given that most of our hospitals were designed when these risks were not on the horizon. In the quest for cheap land not suited to commercial development, many hospitals have been built in areas prone to floods and storms. And many are built out of materials and designed in a way that could increase the risk to patients during extreme weather events.
Hospitals face many challenges in adapting to a changing climate. Our research identified a long list of issues, including:

• underfunded building and infrastructure maintenance and capital works programs
• poor road access for new patients and back-up medical supplies
• generators built in basements prone to flooding
• lack of accommodation for staff trapped on site
• poor coordination with other emergency and health agencies such as aged care
• access roads being cut off
• managers who do not understand the role of buildings in healthcare delivery
• buildings and infrastructure that cannot adapt to changing healthcare needs and patient surges during extreme weather events.

The impacts of extreme weather on hospital buildings and infrastructure and how these influence service delivery during such events have been neglected. These aspects of disaster planning systems need to be properly considered.
In the high-pressured, resource-stretched, highly politicised and hierarchical health sector, current disaster management practices too often overlook the role of buildings and infrastructure.
While severely limited resources are understandably directed towards frontline health service needs, the current system is creating a stock of health buildings and infrastructure that represent a risk, rather than an asset, to quality healthcare delivery during extreme weather events.
The designers and facilities managers of new hospitals are now required to think about these risks, but our understanding of how to mitigate the risks is poor. This means most of our hospitals and other health facilities remain vulnerable to the inevitable extreme weather events in the future.
It’s a matter of time before we see the next headline about needless death and suffering due to a hospital being poorly designed to cope with an extreme weather event.

How do we fix these problems?
The problems would be easier to overcome if we had a more holistic approach to disaster management planning. Such planning needs to better integrate the organisational and built environment aspects of hospital resilience.
This will require a paradigm shift in hospital disaster management. That, in turn, requires an emphasis on involving all hospital stakeholders in disaster management planning.
Hospital infrastructure design, planning, construction and ongoing maintenance need to be revisited. Robust quality control will be required to ensure compliance with improved standards consistent with changing needs.
We will inevitably need to redirect and find additional resources for building adaptation and modification. However, this is probably why nothing will change until we have a disaster big enough to force policymakers to change. Such is life … and death.

Links

• We’ve learned a lot about heatwaves, but we’re still just warming up
• As the climate shifts, are Australian cities ready?
• With more heatwaves to come, how will our cities hold up
• Climate Council: heatwaves are getting hotter and more frequent

This Electric Bus Recharges At Bus Stops In Just A Few Minutes

Fast Company - Adele Peters

As part of Sweden's plan to eliminate fossil-fuel vehicles by 2030, a Stockholm suburb is experimenting with charging electric buses as they drive along their routes.

The bus charges overnight via standard wired charger

Then, each time it comes to the final stop throughout the day, it quickly recharges

A sensor shows the bus driver exactly where to park, and a charging box on the bus lowers until it almost touches the ground

When a new hybrid-electric bus in a Stockholm suburb pulls up to the last stop on its route, it stays a few extra minutes after the last passenger gets off: under the pavement, a wireless charger is recharging the bus.
A full charge—enough for the bus to run its entire route on electric power—takes six or seven minutes.
"Bus stop fast-charging capability is important in order to keep to the timetable of the bus service," says Markus Fischer from Vattenfall, the company that owns and operates the charging station, supplying it with renewable electricity.
The route is part of a new pilot run with the city of Södertälje, the bus manufacturer, Scania, and the Stockholm-based Royal Institute of Technology. While there are other ways to charge an electric bus—like overhead wires or plug-in charging stations—the partners wanted to test hidden chargers partly for aesthetic reasons.

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"The design of the inductive technology has been adapted so as not to disturb existing urban environments and is essentially invisible," says Fischer.
In the pilot, the bus charges overnight via a standard wired charger. Then, each time it comes to the final stop throughout the day, it quickly recharges. A sensor shows the bus driver exactly where to park, and a charging box on the bus lowers until it almost touches the ground.
Sweden plans to make all vehicles in the county fossil-free by 2030, and a simple system to charge buses is part of that; unlike most cars, buses drive all day long and can't rely on an overnight charge alone.
On a longer bus route, multiple stops might have even faster chargers, each charging for 20 to 30 seconds. Eventually, entire roads might also be electrified. Vattenfall believes that wireless charging would also be useful for private cars and trucks.
"In the future, we believe wireless charging will be essential to make it easy and hassle-free to own and use electric vehicles," Fischer says.

Links

• North America’s First 100% Electric Municipal Bus System
• Aussie Electric Bus 1004km range
• 30 Reasons Your Next Car Should Be Electric
• What Is The Current Cost Of Solar Panels?
• Solar & Wind Power Prices Often Lower Than Fossil Fuel Power Prices
• Advantages & Disadvantages Of Solar Power
• 7 Factors Show Why Wind & Solar Are The 1st Choices

Donald Trump Urged To Ditch His Climate Change Denial By 630 Major Firms Who Warn It 'Puts American Prosperity At Risk'

The Independent - Ian Johnston

'We want the US economy to be energy efficient and powered by low-carbon energy'

The US President-elect is facing calls not to abandon the fight against climate change. AP

More than 630 companies and investors have called on Donald Trump and the Republican-dominated Congress to continue the move to a low-carbon economy, warning that failing to do so would “put American prosperity at risk”.
The US President-elect has talked about scrapping the United States’ international commitments to tackle global warming, such as the Paris Agreement, dismissed climate change as a hoax, and appointed a string of climate science deniers to senior positions in his administration.

His election has been described as a “very big challenge” to the world’s efforts to address the problem by UK Climate Change Minister Nick Hurd.
In a joint statement, leading companies, such as Johnson & Johnson, General Mills, Kellogg’s, General Mills, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Unilever, appealed to Mr Trump to reconsider his apparent views.
“We want the US economy to be energy efficient and powered by low-carbon energy,” they said.
“Cost-effective and innovative solutions can help us achieve these objectives. Failure to build a low-carbon economy puts American prosperity at risk.
“But the right action now will create jobs and boost US competitiveness.”
More than 530 companies, which collectively have revenues amounting to nearly $1.15 trillion (about £950bn) a year and employ about 1.8 million people, signed the statement.
The 100 investors include the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the California State Teachers Retirement System and other firms that manage assets worth more than $2 trillion.
Anna Walker, senior director of global policy and advocacy at another signatory to the statement, Levi Strauss & Co, said: “It’s imperative that businesses take an active role in meeting the goals set out by the Paris climate agreement.
“It will be critical that we work together to ensure the US maintains its climate leadership, ultimately ensuring our nation’s long-term economic prosperity.”
And Jonas Kron, senior vice president at Trillium Asset Management, said huge sums of money were going into the low-carbon sector.
“With tens of billions of dollars of US renewable energy investment in the works this year alone, and far more globally, the question for American political leadership is whether they want to harness this momentum and potential for economic growth,” he said.

A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Kira Morris

“It is critically important to realise this is an opportunity that state policymakers can take advantage of, too, not just national leaders.”

The signatories called for the people soon to be the United States’ political leaders to continue policies designed promote a low-carbon economy at home and abroad.
And they specifically asked Mr Trump not to remove the US from the signatories of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Links

• 31 scientific bodies tell US Congress: Climate change is real
• Trump a 'very big challenge' to world, UK climate change minister says
• Man deemed too racist to be a judge to become Trump's attorney general
• Boris Johnson changes his view on Donald Trump after New York talks
• Jeremy Corbyn to 'copy Donald Trump' in aggressive populist strategy