U.S. Senator Ed Markey visited the largest healthcare provider in western Massachusetts today to announce new green hospitals legislation.
Speaking in a conference room at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, the Massachusetts Democrat said the new bill would provide $105 billion in federal funding for hospitals to reduce climate emissions and to also fortify infrastructure against extreme weather.
“ When a climate-fueled climate strikes, people can be sure that their hospital –Baystate hospital – will stay open to treat them,” Markey said. “It will guarantee a future where hospitals are treating patients and the planet.”
Stronger storms, longer and hotter heatwaves, and wildfires have already endangered hospitals from coast-to-coast, Markey said. Still recovering from the COVID pandemic, medical facilities lack the money to pay for new climate resilient infrastructure. The demand for acute medical care has increased as a result of extreme weather events.
“Our hospitals, already history’s great defenders in the face of pain and illness, have now had to join the frontlines of the climate crisis,” Markey said. “It is only going to get worse.”
The new legislation builds on Markey’s “Green New Deal for Health,” which would authorize $130 billion to help community health centers confront climate change.
Asked about the prospects for passage of his green hospitals bill in a divided Congress, Markey pointed to last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which was approved with bipartisan support and despite the name was actually the biggest climate bill ever passed.
“And momentum is building politically as red states and purple states now manufacture solar, wind, installing all these clean energy devices all across the country,” Markey said.
In 2022, Baystate signed on to a White House pledge to cut the healthcare system’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and to be fully carbon neutral by 2050, said Baystate President and CEO Dr. Mark Keroack.
“I believe that the legislation Senator Markey is proposing today will help us move quickly toward that bright future,” he said.
To date, Baystate has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by doing such things as implementing more energy efficient systems in buildings, more LED and natural lighting, switching to hybrid vehicles, reducing surgical waste, and converting to an anesthesia gas that is less harmful to the atmosphere.
A long list of other initiatives and projects have been identified to get Baystate to its climate goals. And it won’t be cheap, said Ariana Walker, Baystate Health’s coordinator for sustainability and energy.
“I tell people it is a reallocation of funds up front,” Walker said. “It is not a cost. It’s a reallocation of funds to realize savings in the long term.”
As part of its climate resiliency efforts, the medical center in Springfield in 2018 opened a new power plant. It replaced oil-powered boilers with natural gas. If the grid goes down, the plant can power the hospital for up to 30 days.
Also, the city of Springfield spent $2.5 million in 2016 to shore up the Van Horn Dam. A breach would have put Baystate’s emergency room under water.
