Green Environment Friendly Hospital and Medical College

Siddharth Lakhotia

How should be Our Future Medical Colleges and Hospitals with respect to Greenery ?

Nature Heals, Nature Cures !!

Nature is the only true Medicine.

Though it looks like a dream to think of such public hospitals, but if we don't act now, overcrowded concrete hospitals will become a major cause of disease themselves.

With increasing need of humanity we are rapidly developing more and more concrete infrastructure to fulfil our needs. But this all is occurring at a big big cost, which we all know, rapid destruction of Nature, trees and open grass lands, and with it comes many modern diseases and problems.

Modern hospitals slowly are becoming a home for diseases themselves, due to their concrete, centrally air-conditioned, all artificial light designs and many other reasons with hardly any space for cross ventilation, open gardens, sunlight, natural air, blue sky, trees and other elements of Nature.

Holistic eco friendly sustainable development is very much the need of hour. Let our trees, gardens, sunlight, fresh air and flowers be heart and lungs of our medical colleges and hospitals. They too are Doctors of Nature !! We need to strike a balance with nature

Health of a patient is directly related to presence of fresh air, sunlight and healthy nature around him or her. It makes him or her joyful and happy, so badly needed for quick recovery

Green Policy and Statement : Should be Must 

1.     50 % land area of medical colleges and associated hospitals will always be kept as open green unconstructed land occupied by large trees like Neem, Banyan, Peepal, Mahua, Mango

2.     Green architecture. It is a method of sustainable building design where the design and construction of a building or structure is done while keeping the environment in mind.

GRIHA, an acronym for Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment, is now the National Rating System of India. Conceived by TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), and developed jointly with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India, GRIHA is a green building design evaluation system.

It provides basic prerequisites for green buildings in terms of the following:

a) climate-based layouts and designs to minimise energy consumption

b) waste water treatment and recycling with zero external discharge

c) use of fly ash blocks for walls and slabs to maximise use of recycled material

d) maximum use of natural lighting and optimum indoor air quality

e ) rain water harvesting

Dr. Siddharth Lakhotia

MBBS, MS, M.Ch, FIACS

Professor and Head

Cardio-Thoracic Surgery

Institute of Medical Sciences

BHU, Varanasi

drslakhotia@gmail.com

https://www.ctsnet.org/home/slakhotia