Health
May 19, 2008 12:46 PM
beingwell magazine Spring 2008
By: Erika Vilmanis
Southlake Regional Health Centre was awarded special recognition last year by the Office of Energy Efficiency of Natural Resources Canada for energy efficiency improvements to buildings throughout its campus.
These improvements, which included upgrading the hospital’s six air handling units and improving the water softening system, not only saved money, they significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions and air contaminants.
The three-year improvement program was a substantial investment and required meticulous tracking and reporting of data, which will be used by Natural Resources Canada to establish a baseline of energy efficiency performance across Canada against which other organizations will be evaluated in the future.
“[Southlake] has started being ‘more green’, but we have a long way to go,”
Marcelino Moniz, manager of physical facilities and leader of the improvement project, says. “We’ve made significant improvements and we are committed, as an organization and as individuals, to continuing to make improvements that will reduce the impact on theelectrical grid, benefit our air quality now and help make a healthier environment for future generations.”
The next major improvement project will be mechanical upgrades to all seven elevators throughout the hospital. This project will encompass replacing the out-of-date motors with newer, more efficient motors that will require much less energy to operate, thus reducing the production of greenhouse gases.
Remember the heat wave of 2007 – those three weeks last summer of excruciating heat and humidity? Southlake Regional Health Centre showed exceptionalleadership by voluntarily turning off about 50 per cent of the lighting throughout the hospital (mainly corridors, lobbies and various rooms) to reduce the load on the power grid.
Because of the hospital’s sheer size and pull on the electrical grid, this simple action resulted in huge power savings, not only benefiting the hospital’s bottom line, but the whole of York Region as well.
Southlake has implemented several improvements to its environmental practices that have already produced tangible energy and water savings:
Reduced the need for hot water in many routine cleaning practices by changing housekeeping disinfectants. The production of greenhouse gases is reduced because energy is not required to heat water. These new disinfectants allow the hospital to maintain cleanliness standards and reduce energy used in daily housekeeping operations.
In Southlake’s new Medical Arts building, out of date floor cleaning equipment has been replaced with new machines (Chariots) manufactured with more efficient motors to reduce noise and the overall mechanical process. Electronic controls allow variable dispensing of chemicals based on the speed at which the machine is traveling, whereas older equipment dispensed the same amount of chemicals at a predetermined rate, regardless of speed. These Chariots reduce the exposure of patients, staff and visitors to excessive (and unnecessary) levels of
chemicals.
Southlake has switched to reusable microfibre floor mops. Using the looped floor mop, approximately 35 litres of water are required to clean three to four rooms. With the new microfibre mops, only one litre of water is required to clean every three to four rooms, after which the reusable mop head is changed.