Sustainability

Dear colleagues, Most of us have been incredibly busy with management of the pandemic locally and nationally. But why were we so busy? We were busy because we wanted to minimise the loss of lives to covid-19 while continuing to provide meaningful care for non-covid-related heath issues. Unfortunately some of us have already been directly impacted by the effects of this disease on either ourselves or our families. I guarantee you that we will eventually get the upper hand and control this disease. There will at some point be a return to the much-longed for ‘normality’. The bad news is that at that point we will no longer be able to avoid contemplating the future that our planet and species are facing unless drastic action is taken. The climatic and environmental apocalypse of which we are beginning to see and feel the effects will make the covid-19 pandemic look like a teddy bears picnic. Putting aside the catastrophe of mass extinctions of irreplaceable species and the collapse of incredibly precious and diverse ecosystems, the possible political and health effects of mass starvation as a result of crop failure due to human-induced climate change will likely result in many, many multiples of the numbers of deaths caused by covid-19. We will likely see mass human migrations on a heretofore unimagined scale. There is however a small fragment of good news: we still have a chance to avert many of the worst effects of this onrushing apocalypse if we take rapid action. How our specialty functions is part of the problem, the rest of the problem is how society functions. As a specialty we utilise a large amount of single use devices which have a high environmental cost. Some of our anaesthetic agents are incredibly potent greenhouse gases. As a specialty and as a society we are not using the earth’s resources in a sustainable fashion. In order to strengthen and focus our efforts as doctors in addressing the biggest healthcare issue of our time - the environmental impact of non-sustainable human activity on human health - the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland have mandated the formation of a sustainability committee. The committee’s aims can be summarised in two points: (1) Make the practice of our specialty as sustainable as possible; (2) Utilise our position as a scientifically literate and learned group that has human well-being and health as a core goal to advocate and support societal changes towards greater sustainability. The first meeting of the sustainability committee occurred on zoom on the 14th of May. The sustainabilty committee will report to the Quality and Safety Advisory Committee. I am very grateful to Dr. Brian Kinirons and Dr. Kevin Clarkson for their dynamism in forming the committee. I also wish to acknowledge the driving heart of environmentalism in anaesthesiology which is committed trainees such as Dr. Oscar Duffy, Dr. Tim Keady and Dr. Vinnie Wall. We are just getting started and are very open-minded so please do not hesitate to email if you have thoughts in respect of directions we could take. In particular we would love to hear from trainees. I will chair the committee. My email is docroinin@muh.ie. Is mise le meas & with warmest good wishes, Donall O’Croinin Mercy University Hospital , Cork.