Dunedin Hospital uses more nitrous oxide than most other DHBs, let alone hospitals, and no-one knows why, a new report says.
The surprising statistic emerged in a carbon footprint assessment of the Southern District Health Board.
The assessment found that the predominantly coal-fired boilers the SDHB uses to power Dunedin and Southland Hospitals were its top ticket polluting item, at 58.6% of the organisation's carbon output.
Medical gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide were a surprising second at 12.6%, topping electricity and vehicles. Of that 12.6%, the vast majority of those 3432 tonnes of carbon emissions came from the anaesthetic and pain reliever nitrous oxide, and in particular the gas cylinders used at Dunedin Hospital, which accounted for 3171 tonnes; Southland was just 165.
"The main users are operating theatres and the labour ward," the report, written while on sabbatical by SDHB anaesthetist Matt Jenks, said.
"Operating theatres, as anaesthetic practice has changed, use very little N2O except for specific clinical indications ... discussion with colleagues at each site reveals Dunedin has approximately 1800 deliveries per annum and Southland 1200, and this difference in deliveries does not explain the 20-fold difference in N2O use."
The report said compared with other DHBs, the SDHB's use of N2O was "disproportionately high", even allowing for differences in population and funding.
Dr Jenks told an SDHB commissioners meeting staff were investigating gas pipelines in case a leak might account for the high gas usage.
The carbon assessment, which has been audited, found that the SDHB's total carbon footprint was equivalent to 28,240 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
When benchmarked against five other DHBs the SDHB's footprint ranked third, but when adjusted for total funding and population served, "SDHB's total inventory of emissions far exceeds all other major DHB's."
A companion report proposing the SDHB target an 80% reduction in emissions by 2030, said the objective was attainable if measures such as eliminating coal use at Southland and Dunedin hospitals, using electric vehicles, reducing waste, and adopting environmental sustainability tools were taken.
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Personally, I think it's quite easy to find the root cause of the high use of nitrous oxide at the SDHB.
Management at the SDHB dig the taxpayer into a $40m hole of debt and leave them to wonder how they can just laugh it off ... well basically, they're getting together in the bottom of the hole every morning, lunch and knock-off time, sit 'round and start sucking on the old nitrous ... otherwise known as laughing gas ;-)
That probably accounts for around 50% of the overuse, another 20% on-sold to the Law Faculty for their annual party, and the rest will probably be getting passed on the sons of board members and medical consultants, so they can add a few more horsepower to their cars for the weekly Saturday night burn out and street races.
Another 20% will be "used" by leaks in medical equipment because there's no money for equipment maintenance
That only leaves about a 10% "over use" which is well within DHB guidelines and the board will no doubt give themselves a bloody great bonus ... no need to worry about the 80 year old woman complaining about a little "niggling" pain in her hip after falling over ...
Carbon footprint ... What carbon footprint ??
"Medical gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide were a surprising second at 12.6%, topping electricity and vehicles. Of that 12.6%, the vast majority of those 3432 tonnes of carbon emissions came from the anaesthetic and pain reliever nitrous oxide, " Am I missing something here...Nitrous Oxide doesn't not contain carbon. Beside that its time the government and departments looked at the science of global warming and dropped this "Carbon" nonsense.