Electrifying 10 per cent of Australia’s public hospitals each year from 2027 until 2036 would save $59 million per year in energy bills.
As well as the cost savings electrification would reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking nearly 150,000 petrol cars off Australian roads.
These figures are included in a new report entitled All-Electric Healthy Hospitals: a Cost Benefit Analysis.
The report was released by a long list of organisations representing over 400,000 Australian healthcare workers.
The organisations gathered at Parliament House earlier this month to release the report and call on the federal government to fund feasibility studies to electrify nine pilot hospitals across every Australian state and territory.
They called on state, territory and federal governments to replace gas with renewable electricity in every public hospital in Australia.
Organisations represented at the launch included Healthy Futures the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
Healthy Futures co-founder, Dr Harry Jennens, said if hospitals aren’t beholden to the volatile global price shocks of expensive fossil gas, they’ll have more money to invest in what’s most important - patient care.
“The energy security of our hospitals is paramount, and the reliability of gas supplies is vulnerable to storms and infrastructure accidents that can damage pipelines. This could leave a hospital without heat or hot water, which can have severe consequences for patient care,” he said.
“In Lithgow (NSW) a few years ago a shutdown in the gas supply forced a hospital to postpone surgeries and patients faced delays in receiving care.”
The health sector accounts for seven per cent of Australia’s domestic carbon footprint and one third of the energy used in Australian public hospitals is derived from burning fossil gas.
The All-Electric Healthy Hospitals campaign is seeking $1.5 million in funding from the Federal Government to invest in feasibility studies for the nine-hospital electrification pilot program.