Humans are designed to make decisions in the now, not ones in the abstract long term. That’s why ‘cathedral thinking’ comes so hard to us – so it’s understandable that making healthcare more sustainable is hard when its primary function is first and foremost to save lives today, not the planet tomorrow. It’s easy to say you want to be more sustainable but when you’re dealing with people’s lives, does sustainability go out of the window? So what can we actually do? This episode of Invent: Health sees us explore the difficulties and challenges as healthcare industries try to become more sustainable.
Find out on this week’s episode of Invent: Health from TTP.
This Week’s Guests
Dr Michael Spiro is an anaesthetic and intensive care consultant at a London NHS teaching hospital. He has research interests in resource utilisation, enhanced recovery, innovation and sustainability in health care.
Dr Seema Gandhi is a professor in the department of anaesthesia and the medical director of sustainability at University of California, San Francisco Health System. Trained in India/ UK and the US, she has a global perspective of the practice of medicine and her research focused on decreasing carbon emissions and waste from healthcare. Dr Gandhi is involved in many initiatives focused on Reduction of single use devices, energy consumption and increasing sustainability focused education among healthcare providers.
Maria Koijck is a Dutch artist and activist based in Groningen. Her artistic practise has focused on waste for many years. Whether it’s sculptures made from plastic bottles or tackling the issue of beachside pollution in countries as far afield as Sierra Leone, Maria’s work consistently takes aim at the unsustainable use of plastics while simultaneously opening up questions on how we might solve it.
