Bantry General Hospital has won a Silver Award from The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) in the UK for its efforts to become cleaner and greener.
The West Cork-based hospital’s Injury Unit (IU) received the award for its ‘GreenED’ project.
The new initiative is designed to measure and reduce the environmental impact of Emergency Departments and IUs, driving environmentally sustainable practices within the speciality of Emergency Medicine.
The project intends to help emergency medical teams find innovative ways to protect nature such as recycling more, using less electricity and making conscious effort to reduce waste.
Speaking about their win, Hospital Manager at Bantry General Hospital, Carole Croke said:
“We are absolutely delighted to receive this Silver GreenED award. Our staff at the Injury Unit have worked incredibly hard to find green solutions that save energy and cut down on waste.
“I’d like to congratulate staff member Dr Rachel Fellowes, who led the team here in Bantry to help them win this award,” Ms Croke said.
Departments can sign-up to the programme directly and start working towards achieving evidence-based actions that are awarded at Bronze, Silver and Gold levels.
Among the sustainability measures introduced at the IU in Bantry are the streamlining of waste streams to ensure bins were being used appropriately, the reduction of the number of disposable materials used including curtains, tourniquets and cups, as well as switching to electronic communication records rather than postage to cut down on paper.
Clinical Nurse Manager, HSE South West, Marguerite Murray said the Bantry IU “embraced” the initiative.
“We embraced the Green ED initiative in Bantry Injury Unit as we saw it as an ideal opportunity to enhance patient care, to increase our efficiency and to promote stewardship of our valuable resources such as time, staff, drugs, and equipment.
“The changes we made demonstrably reduced our carbon emissions which has enhanced our overall service.
“We, as a multidisciplinary team, are very pleased to have been awarded our Silver accreditation this year and are looking forward to working towards Gold next year,” Ms Murray said.
The green project in Ireland is supported by the HSE Climate Action team, the National Clinical Programme for Emergency Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), and SPARK Innovation Funding.