At a time when hospitals in the metropolis are multiplying initiatives to try to reduce their carbon footprint, Montreal Public Health is urging Quebec to apply legislative changes to help hospitals in the province pollute less.
Reducing the energy consumption of buildings, electrifying transport and increasing the use of composting are some of the measures taken by hospitals in the metropolis to become more ecological, in the context of the fight against climate change.
“As for electrification, we have a three-year plan to electrify our entire fleet of vehicles”, thus indicates to the Duty the assistant director general for support, administration and performance of the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, Julie d’Entremont. The duty met the latter on the sidelines of the Montreal Climate Summit, which also took part on Wednesday the regional director of public health of Montreal, Mylène Drouin.
“The health network, if we put the 10 Montreal establishments, it’s almost 150,000 employees, they are thousands of users, people who are housed and fed on a daily basis”, illustrated the DD Drouin on the sidelines of this panel. “It’s a lot like carbon footprint. »
In order to reduce the pollution they generate, hospitals in metropolitan France are gradually freeing themselves from their dependence on oil to use electricity as a source of heating. Steps are in particular underway in this direction at the Notre-Dame hospital, indicates Mme Drouin in interview. “We have been able to show that it will even be profitable to apply these energy transformations,” she rejoices. The Montreal health network is working in parallel with the City in the hope of generalizing the collection or treatment of compostable materials in hospitals in the metropolis, adds Ms.me Drouin.
The Trottier Family Foundation also took advantage of the Montreal Climate Summit on Wednesday to announce the granting of $10 million in funding over five years to the Montreal hospital network to help it reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. tight.
The role of Quebec
To help them in this green transition, however, hospitals will need the support of Quebec, which must have “ambitious targets” in terms of ecological transition in the health sector, and grant hospitals adequate financial resources to achieve these objectives. , believes Mylène Drouin.
However, currently, the health network is not subject to the Sustainable Development Act, although it has made certain voluntary commitments in connection with it. “If, tomorrow, the CHUM decides that carbon neutrality, we don’t care about it anymore, nothing will happen. The CHUM will continue, it will have no penalties because, more broadly, in terms of the healthcare system, this is not an objective”, thus lamented Wednesday during a panel the medical co-manager for the carbon neutrality and sustainable development at the University of Montreal Hospital Center (CHUM), Stephan Williams.
Julie d’Entremont notes for her part that the systematic use of the lowest bidder in calls for tenders launched by the public sector must end, in order to prioritize instead the fact of having more sustainable infrastructures, even if they cost more. to build. A file that “begins to be discussed” in Quebec, she says.