To ensure efficient and continuous health care delivery, there should always be energy access. The health care system, however, relies on fossil-based energy for all its operations, and this contributes to environmental harm. This also goes against the goal of all humane and people-centered health care systems to protect the environment as a way to also protect human health.
This is why it is important for hospitals, healthcare centers, and other health-oriented facilities to shift to renewable energy. Those that rely on loud diesel generators that create noise pollution and well as polluting the air with gas fumes should decommission them and install solar PV systems instead. This will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly.
Solar Cuts Costs of Healthcare Operations
Specifically in the Philippines, the already poor healthcare system has further worsened because of the COVID-19 pandemic and both public and private hospitals are overflowing, unable to cope with the massive number of patients sick not with COVID-19, but also of other illnesses and health conditions. It can be assumed that since 2020, the electricity bills of health facilities have sky-rocketed. All clinics, emergency sections, maternity wards, operating rooms, medical equipment warehouses and laboratories need electricity to power their lights and elevators, run air conditioning units, refrigerate vaccines, and operate life-saving medical devices.
If hospitals shifted to solar, they will be able to cut their electricity costs and use their savings to improve their services and welfare programs, especially the ones for indigent sectors. In the meantime, in the remote areas where health services are difficult to access, solar-power clinics can be established so that barangay health workers can provide emergency aid when needed as well as basic health services for children, senior citizens, and pregnant women.
Solar power can help community centers to install electric fans and lights, as well as refrigerators where they can store medicines and vaccines. Solar power can go a long way to help improve health services in far-flung areas.
This is why it’s a very important development when hospitals like Mary Johnston in Tondo, Manila go solar. By installing a solar PV system, they can save on electricity costs and devote more funds to their core business: taking care of the health of the Filipinos.
Mary Johnston Hospital’s Green Initiatives
WeGen is now building a 389.12 kWp grid-tie solar PV system for MJH. The hospital has dubbed the initiate as the “Healing Light,” another one of its Green Initiatives that are in keeping with its mission to help the environment as a way of serving God. The project was launched last January 12 in a simple outdoor ceremony in the hospital’s Dr. Rebecca Miranda Memorial Gardens. The launch was attended by members of the hospital’s board of trustees led by Mr. Reiner Puno.
Executive Director Dr. Glenn Paraso said that through the installation of a solar PV system, Mary Johnston Hospital will contribute to the decarbonization of the environment and become a catalyst in mitigating climate change.
“The savings from the solar panel yield will help cross-subsidize the health needs of our indigent patients. We will be able to further improve our services for patients with tuberculosis and HIV,” he said.
Mr. Puno said that the partnership with WeGen was very timely because both the hospital and WeGen carry the same advocacies for renewable energy, sustainability, and battling climate change. “We are also a God-centered health institution, and on this point, we are also like WeGen Laudato Si’,” he said.
The system is expected to produce 10,217,659 kWh of solar-generated electricity in 25 years. The total value or cost of the electricity that will be produced is ₱114 million: this is the amount that the hospital will be saving instead of buying power from Meralco. Without the system, MJH will have to pay a total of P288 million in electricity for 25 years.
Over the same period, the solar PV system is expected to prevent the production of 596 metric tons of sulfur dioxide which is the leading cause of acid rain, and 24 metric tons of nitrous oxide which is the main cause of smog. In the meantime, the oxygen that the system will be protected will be equivalent to the production of 89,750 hectares of forests.
Solar for Better Public Health
WeGen Laudato Si’ Pres. Charlie Ayco lauded Mary Johnston Hospital for its decision to shift to solar energy and called the move “making great sense and consistent with the values of faith and caring for the environment.”
“It makes great sense for health institutions to go solar: solar energy is good for people's health because they have no carbon emissions. Hospitals should support technologies that support a clean environment for better public health. We hope that all other hospitals in the National Capital Region – and all over the country for the matter – will follow the example Mary Johnston Hospital is now setting and become more environmentally friendly and sustainable in their energy sourcing,” he said. WeGen continues its commitment to Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ appeal for ecological conversion and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to improve humanity’s access to quality health services by installing solar that will lead to cost-effective access to electricity, while also mitigating the impact of climate change and advancing multiple SDGs. #