Discussing sustainable healthcare with Dr Tedros at the World Health Organization
Discussing sustainable healthcare with Dr Tedros at the World Health Organization
On Friday 2 December 2022 at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters, the need to support hospitals to be more resilient and sustainable was the subject of discussion in a meeting between the IHF, Geneva Sustainability Centre, University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG) and the WHO.
The IHF’s CEO, Ronald Lavater, Executive Director of the Geneva Sustainability Centre, Sonia Roschnik, and Director-General of HUG, Bertrand Levrat, met with Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO. Also representing the WHO, were Dr Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health and Dr Catharine Boehme, Chief of Staff.
At the meeting, Dr Tedros and his team were briefed on the IHF’s commitment to raising awareness of the need for healthcare leaders to act for climate health, including an introduction to the work of the Geneva Sustainability Centre and its focus on building the capacities of hospital leaders to lead their institutions in an environmentally sustainable way.
The meeting with Dr Tedros also provided an opportunity to highlight the exemplary leadership occurring in Geneva from the HUG, Switzerland’s largest university hospital. Bertrand Levrat, Director-General of the HUG and a Governing Council member for the IHF, spoke of the urgency for healthcare leaders to commit their organizations to act now and move towards carbon neutrality. They also discussed the IHF Awards, which recognise outstanding projects, programmes, and services of hospitals and health service providers. In 2022, the HUG won a gold award for corporate social responsibility with an entry entitled “Shaping the sustainable hospital of tomorrow: elaborating a sustainability strategy with the hospital’s stakeholders”.
