For sustainable Swiss health services within global limits
Authors : Julia Gonzalez Holguera, Nicolas Senn
For sustainable Swiss health services within planetary limits: roadmap of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS)
The SAMS has published a roadmap in 2019 on the (non)-sustainability of the Swiss healthcare system, stressing in particular that medicine today is based on a paradigm of unlimited progress;In particular, he pointed out that today's medicine is based on a paradigm of unlimited progress, creating and confronting unrealistic expectations, while the financial and human resources on which it is based are limited. The environmental (non)-sustainability of healthcare systems is barely addressed. However, in view of the urgent ecological and climatic issues, and the expected impact on public health, it would seem coherent to extend the recommendations of the 2019 roadmap to environmental considerations. Indeed, while significant gains in terms of life expectancy and overall health have been made in recent decades, this progress is likely to be undermined by the fact that, in the long term, we will have to adapt to the changing environment;However, there is a risk that this progress will be jeopardised by the erosion of planetary limits, and in particular by climate change and the loss of biodiversity.
Furthermore, health services, which are responsible for around 5% of greenhouse gas emissions, will not only have to adapt to the health consequences of environmental degradation (heatwaves, infectious diseases, etc.), but will also have to question the way they operate. This is essential if we are to support the societal transformations needed to ensure that human societies function within the limits of the planet.
This roadmap, developed in collaboration with some sixty experts in health and sustainability, represents a first step towards thinking about sustainable health services in Switzerland. The seven proposals put forward are intended to guide healthcare players at all levels (political, clinical, hospital, outpatient) in the development of concrete actions that are adapted to the context in which they operate.
Publication date: June 2022
