How I define sustainability in health care
How I define sustainability in health care finding a balance in the health of a community as a whole, including the environment. Our environment plays a massive role in overall human health. The World Health Organization relates many health issues that are directly related to the quality of water and air (Staff, 2015). Sustainability incorporates practices in healthcare organizations that are good for the community, environment, and business. Practices such as minimizing waste, disposable of harmful waste properly as not to release any waste into the environment, recycling, and using environmentally friendly products (cleaning, sanitizing etc)
In my current occupation, we generate a lot of waste. I have attempted to have this conversation with our administrator about recycling plastic, paper, cardboard etc, however, I was not successful in convincing him that we need to invest in a better waste management. All of our trash is disposed of in the same garbage bin (expect for medical waste, those are disposed of properly). His response was that it would be even more expensive to incorporate a system of recycling and it would take too much effort to have staff change their habits. I didn’t think his response was adequate as we are required in our community to recycle items such as plastic, cardboard, glass etc. To be honest I was at a bit loss for words with his response because the overall feeling was that he just didn’t care enough or thought about the overall picture in attempts to lessen human impacts on the environment which helps overall human health.