Mediclinic takes extra measures to save water

Posted on 1 February 2017

Southern Africa is a water-scarce region, and everyone needs to play their part in the conservation of our purest and most valuable resource: water.

Even hospitals are faced with having to cut back on water consumption. As far back as 2000, Mediclinic Southern Africa implemented the ISO 14001 set of standards, an environmental management system that sets out the criteria around which an organisation can minimise its environmental impact while still operating efficiently and effectively. The certification system, which is followed by organisations in 171 countries around the world, assesses the natural resources used by the company, and provides parameters on how best to consume, monitor and measure them.

Francois Bester, Environmental Systems Manager for Mediclinic Southern Africa, believes if South Africa continues with its current water consumption, in the face of ever-drier and hotter weather conditions, the country has an enormous problem looming.

‘If rainfall is minimal between now and June, the dams in the Western Cape, for example, will be as low as 20% full. This will not only affect water stocks for the province, but also water quality, as water treatment plants will struggle with sufficient throughput for purification,’ says Francois.

Water plays a critical role in the effective functioning of any hospital – without continuous water supply, hospitals cannot ensure hygiene. Power outages can be overcome with the use of generators, but the same does not apply to water – it cannot be generated. Thirty-six hours without water will see the shutting down and evacuation of a hospital.

To counteract a crisis, Mediclinic put measures in place well ahead of time. The first step was to recategorise the importance of water in the hospitals, elevating it from “strategic” to “life support”. Without water, there can be no hospital.

The next step was to ensure reliable measurement of the resource. Bester maintains that if a resource cannot be measured, it cannot be managed. The water meters of the various local municipalities had proven unreliable in the accuracy of their readings, so Mediclinic took the decision to install its own meters at all of its 53 hospitals across the country. ‘Technical managers at each of our facilities are now able, at the push of a button, to view water flow, pressure and usage. Being able to measure our water allows us to conserve the precious resource.’

The third phase in the plan was to put in place a water contingency plan. ‘In the past we designed our hospitals to be capable of lasting 24 hours without water from the local authority. Our water contingency plan ensures our hospitals can continue operating smoothly, without interruption, for far longer periods of time. It’s quite common for some of our regional hospitals to be without water from the local authority for up to 14 days at a time,’ says Francois.

The plan assesses the requirements of each hospital’s infrastructure and determines which areas can be downscaled during a water cut, without impacting on patients. Mediclinic’s larger hospitals offering major procedures like heart operations all now have boreholes, specifically for emergency use, while the remainder of its hospitals have contractual agreements with alternative suppliers of water that can be brought in by a tanker.

The fourth strategic step in Mediclinic’s risk management of water was to implement a water contamination plan to mediate the low quality of municipal water from ineffective processes at purification plants.

Francois points out that the most important component of any risk management process is human behaviour. ‘Changing people’s attitude and behaviour is fundamental to the success of any water conservation programme. You can put in place all the control measures possible, but if you can’t change and manage behaviour, it renders all your technology and processes redundant.’

Francois believes a drought is the most effective way to change people’s attitude towards water consumption. ‘Drought is one of the biggest eye-openers – it forces people to see the reality of the effects of lack of water, which in turn encourages them to optimise their water usage and not to waste the resource.’