Healthcare’s contribution to climate change is well established. The question now is how the health system responds. This week, a coalition of health organisations called on the Federal Government to fund feasibility studies into electrifying public hospitals across the country.
Jason Staines writes:
The Federal Government has been urged to support the electrification of Australia’s several hundred public hospitals, with a first step being to invest $1.5 million in feasibility studies at nine pilot sites.
Moving hospitals away from gas would cut emissions, reduce energy costs and strengthen the resilience of the health system, according a report released this week by Healthy Futures, All-Electric Healthy Hospitals: a Cost-Benefit Analysis.
The proposed sites for the feasibility studies are Williamstown Hospital and Echuca Regional Health in Victoria; Broome Health Campus in Western Australia; New Norfolk District Hospital in Tasmania; Modbury Hospital in South Australia; Redland Hospital in Queensland; Gove District Hospital in the Northern Territory; and Kurri Kurri Hospital and Armidale Hospital in New South Wales.
The report, co-authored with Lucid Consulting Australia, argues that electrifying 10 percent of Australia’s public hospitals each year from 2027 to 2036 could save $59 million annually in hospital energy bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equivalent to taking almost 150,000 petrol cars off the road.
The call was supported by representatives from across the health sector, with medical, nursing, public health and environmental health organisations represented at Parliament House alongside MPs, including Dr Monique Ryan, Dr Sophie Scamps, Zali Steggall, Kate Chaney and Labor Member for Robertson Dr Gordon Reid. A representative from Health Minister Mark Butler’s office also attended.
Healthy Futures later briefed Assistant Health Minister Rebecca White and Kate Thwaites MP, Special Envoy for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience, but said the Government had not made any commitment on funding the proposed feasibility studies. However, they intend to make a submission ahead of the next federal budget for the funding.
Australian Midwifery and Nursing Federation Federal Assistant Secretary Catelyn Richards said the proposed pilot program would help create hospitals better equipped for future challenges.
“The proposed pilot will create public hospitals that are better equipped to lower their energy bills, strengthen their energy security, and stay connected in extreme weather events,” she said. “It enables nurses, midwives and healthcare workers to keep doing what they do every day: protecting and caring for every person in Australia.”
Croakey has sought a response from the office of Federal Health Minister Mark Butler about the report’s recommendations and whether the Government would consider funding the proposed feasibility studies. At the time of publication, no response had been received.
The new report is endorsed by Doctors for the Environment Australia, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, the Climate and Health Alliance, and the Australian Federation of Medical Women.
Pressures ahead
Health service resilience is likely to be tested in the months ahead, with a rapidly strengthening El Niño raising the prospect of an exceptionally hot and dry spring, followed by a summer in which extreme heat is expected to remain a significant risk. The developing conditions also increase concern about drought and bushfires.
For hospitals, the challenge is twofold: maintaining reliable services through periods of extreme heat and disruption, while also responding to the additional burden of illness those conditions can create.
Michelle Isles, CEO of the Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA), said the debate about hospital energy systems increasingly included questions of health security and resilience, as well as emissions.
“Fuel shortages, increased burden of disease through local exposure to coal and gas pollution, and frequent climate events equate to a health emergency,” she told Croakey. “Ultimately we need 100 percent renewable health services, powered locally to bring security and enable patients and workers to breathe easy.”
Dr Harry Jennens, co-founder of Healthy Futures, said electrification could also help hospitals reduce exposure to volatile fossil gas prices while strengthening energy security.
“Electrifying our hospitals will save money in the medium to long term and protect people’s health,” he 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.”
For Jennens, the issue is not only about the emissions generated by hospitals themselves, but about reducing the health burden created by climate change. He said reducing pollution from healthcare operations was one way the sector could reduce the burden of disease associated with climate change.
The new report also highlights the risks posed by interruptions to gas supplies. As Jennens notes, damage to infrastructure or extreme weather events can disrupt supply, potentially affecting hospital operations.
He cited a 2022 gas outage in Lithgow, NSW, where damage to a pipeline disrupted supply across the region and forced Lithgow Hospital to postpone some non-urgent procedures because gas was needed for hot water services, including sterilising surgical equipment.
For Dr Simon Judkins, an emergency physician and Director of Emergency at Echuca Hospital, climate change is already impacting the work of hospitals.
“Our hospitals have to operate in increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events. We also need to ensure that hospitals aren’t contributing to this worsening situation by relying on fossil fuels,” he said.
Demonstration sites
The proposed pilots build on work already underway in parts of the health system. The Canberra Hospital opened its first all-electric building in 2024, the report notes. Twenty-one state-of-the-art heat pumps replaced outdated gas boilers, reducing the hospital’s carbon footprint by approximately 1,886 tonnes annually.
The Kangaroo Island Health Service in South Australia became Australia’s first fully electric, gas-free public hospital in early 2025. The transition phased out gas hot water, steam boilers, heaters, and cooking appliances to lower costs and cut carbon emissions, says the report.
The Victorian Government has committed more than $900 million to deliver a new Melton Hospital in 2029 – this will be Victoria’s first all-electric hospital.
The report also cites developments overseas, including in the UK. The Castle Hill Hospital in East Yorkshire installed 11,000 solar panels across 7.7 hectares of land adjacent to its site in just five months. This £4.2 million ($8.1 million) project, known as the “Field of Dreams”, has made the hospital self- sufficient for its daytime energy needs.
In Spain, a major hospital group called Vithas is that country’s first hospital group to run entirely on certified renewable electricity and achieve carbon neutrality in gas and electricity.
Meanwhile, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has updated its Climate change and planetary health position statement, warning that climate change is already affecting Australians’ health and increasing pressure on the healthcare system.
The RACGP says GPs are seeing the impacts firsthand, from extreme heat, bushfires, floods and poor air quality through to worsening impacts on people living with chronic conditions and those experiencing disadvantage.
Dr Nicole Sleeman, Chair of the RACGP Specific Interests Climate and Environmental Medicine, said climate resilience and low-carbon approaches needed to be embedded across prevention, primary care, models of care, infrastructure and clinical practice.
“We have a responsibility to transition to net zero as part of protecting the health of Australians,” she told Croakey. “As such, the conversation has moved beyond recognising climate change as a threat to health, to asking: ‘How do we build a health system that is both resilient to climate change and part of the solution?’”
The RACGP has called for governments to fully implement the National Health and Climate Strategy and commit to a net zero healthcare system, while recognising the role of general practice in prevention, preparedness and community resilience.
Sleeman said hospital infrastructure was only one part of the transition. “Minimising avoidable hospital care is equally important to building a net-zero, climate-resilient health system,” she said.
She said a well-resourced primary care system could both reduce avoidable hospitalisations and make communities less vulnerable to climate-related health impacts. “Comprehensive primary care is high-value, low-carbon healthcare, co-benefiting people and planet.”
Feasibility matters
While the new report makes a strong economic case for electrification, it does not suggest the transition will happen overnight. The feasibility studies are needed to understand what is possible in different settings.
That reflects the complexity of hospital infrastructure, given they contain specialised equipment, operate around the clock and cannot simply shut down while major systems are replaced.
The feasibility studies are intended to examine how electrification could work across different hospital environments, including metropolitan and regional settings with different infrastructure and power supply considerations.
Bob Wilson, National Leader Energy & Sustainability at Lucid Consulting and co-author of the report, said hospitals across Australia varied significantly.
“Hospitals across Australia are incredibly diverse. They are large and small; they are metropolitan, regional, rural and remote; they provide acute, non-acute and community services; they are located in all climates; they are old and new,” he told Croakey.
He said the nine hospitals had been selected to cover a wide range of hospital types.
“The output from these feasibility studies will be critical to identify which types of hospitals and services provided the greatest financial and environmental outcomes. This will help local health districts prioritise and plan electrification activities effectively, extracting maximum value from any electrification program.”
Wilson said one misconception about electrification was that electric hospitals were less resilient than those relying on fossil fuels.
“However, if an electric hospital is designed well, it should have more redundancy and be more resilient than an equivalent fossil fuel hospital.”
He said the feasibility studies would also examine the potential for microgrids to provide greater stability and resilience. “Our feasibility studies proposal extends that further by looking at the potential to introduce microgrids to provide more stability and resilience to the hospital electricity supply and the local community, where relevant.”
The report identifies the need to examine technical feasibility, procurement, maintenance, workforce requirements, governance arrangements and continuity of care.
The economic case
Much discussion about healthcare emissions has focused on responsibility: if climate change threatens health, healthcare should be part of the solution. The new report adds another argument: electrification can make financial sense.
Its modelling compares the cost of electrifying hospitals with the alternative of replacing ageing gas infrastructure with similar systems. It argues that while electrification requires upfront investment, those costs can be offset over time through lower operating costs.
Wilson said the economic argument was important because health infrastructure funding was always constrained. “When planning health infrastructure, funding is always constrained and usually tied directly to health outcomes, which is the primary purpose of our healthcare system.”
He said making both the environmental and economic case showed there was no conflict between reducing emissions and improving healthcare.
“By making the environmental and economic argument together we can show that there is no conflict. In reducing our environmental impact, we can also improve our healthcare system and better serve our communities.”
The report estimates that a staged rollout could reduce hospital energy costs by $59 million annually once implemented – turning electrification from an environmental obligation into an investment decision.
It also argues that continuing to invest in fossil fuel-dependent infrastructure risks creating stranded assets – buildings and systems that become costly to maintain as the economy transitions away from fossil fuels.
The health sector’s environmental impact has been documented for many years. Doctors for the Environment Australia has argued that healthcare has a particular responsibility to lead emissions reduction because its core purpose is protecting health.
The scale of the challenge remains significant. The Australian Centre for Disease Control’s baseline estimate found the health system produced 23.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in 2021–22, representing 5.44 per cent of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
The health sector’s climate response will continue to involve many areas: procurement, models of care, waste reduction, transport and prevention.
The proposed hospital pilot program is a test of that next stage: how a health system can continue delivering safe, reliable care while becoming more resilient, less emissions-intensive and better prepared for the challenges ahead. An important part of that challenge is ensuring infrastructure that is fit for the future.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on sustainable healthcare
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