A green hospital | Gilberto Fleites | TEDxHavana

For many years Fleites has been working on a project to build a "Green Hospital" in Cuba. His knowledge of medicine and bioethics has motivated him to defend the possibility to create a space where people cannot only be cured, but also a space where the environment is respected. A sustainable green hospital will be the one where the purpose of healing human beings will be combined with the rational use of water, renewable energy, and other resources.

Fleites is a ontological general surgeon with 30 years of experience in the field.
He managed for more that ten years, the Servicio de Cirugía Esplácnica in the National institute of Oncology and Radiobiology (INOR). Bioethics is one of his areas of investigation through his link with the Cuban Medical Committee for Global Survival (IPPNW Cuban branch) and the Centro Felix Varela. Fleites is currently working as a surgeon in the Institute of Tropical Medicine 'Pedro Kouri' (IPK). Among his latest projects is the construction of a green hospital as a pillar for sustainable medicine.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

I am a dreamer and for the past 20 years
I've had a recurrent dream.

The dream of building a hospital
that works as a bridge

between medicine and ecology,

by using the tools
of sustainable architecture.

My occupation is oncologic surgery.

That means that every day my fundamental
job is to operate people with cancer.

Throughout 25 years, I operated
on more than 2000 cases like this one:

This is a CAT scan of
a patient with lung cancer

and, unfortunately, is a really
frequent part of my daily job.

But it shouldn't be that way.

Ideally, I should be able
to let go of the scalpel

thanks to an effective prevention.

In retrospective, when I look
at the spring creek of my life

I see that my daily contact
with cancer, its study,

has change the way I see medicine
and the way I see the world.

Before, I just thought about
just cutting...

My mind now is more preventive.

This led me to become a vegetarian in '94

and to study the ecological, economic,
political, and environmental subjects

to be able to solve the problems,
or part of the problems

that affect our planet.

In this course, throughout life,
I found inspiring the life and work

of revolutionaries like Albert Schweitzer,
winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

whose slogan was "reverence for life",

and in that reverence, logically,
he was also a vegetarian.

And Potter's work, who created the modern
concept of "bioethics, the ethic of life"

which he saw as a bridge between humanity
and planet Earth, towards the future.

I like to compare what we do to our bodies
with what we do to Mother Earth's body.

You know about the basic food groups
for a healthy life.

And you also know the concept
of "junk food", "fast food."

Unfortunately, in the pictures
you can see the four basic food groups

for many Cubans.

And here are the consequences:
cancer is the leading cause of death

for Cuban people.

And when we walk on the country's streets,
we witness the growing obesity epidemic

that is associated with diabetes,
hypertension, ischemic heart disease

and many other things that probably
many people sitting in the audience

are also suffering from.

This is not a normal situation.

I make the comparison between junk food
and what we feed Mother Earth with.

Look at those chimneys that are polluting
our air, our earth, our water, our food,

and is exactly that,
and we're also doing it in Cuba,

what causes that when we look at the
horizon in the morning,

we see a gray layer of smoke that covers
the city and we're breathing it every day.

What you're seeing right now
is not a factory's chimney,

is not a thermal power station's chimney,
nor a refinery's chimney;

is a hospital's chimney, and now,
let me tell you the concept that

a traditional hospital, worldwide not just
in Cuba, heals and kills at the same time.

A hospital is a huge contributor
to the planet's pollution.

Is a huge user of fossil fuels' powered
energy, is a huge user of products

that after being used,
are thrown away,

not recycled, contributing
to Earth's pollution.

That results in cancer
and many other things.

Here's the picture of a whole lung,
the left lung of a patient

I had to operate due to lung cancer.

A lot of times we blame
the smoker for his own cancer:

"You got cancer and is your fault,
who told you to smoke?"

But each day, we, the people
that eat healthy, work out, are thin,

anyway, have a healthy life style,
are more, but because of a sick planet,

we're also getting cancer,
including lung cancer.

Even worse,
the childhood cancer's epidemic

is increasing both in Cuba and worldwide.

These babies,
still in their mothers' wombs,

where they're supposed
to be protected and warm, right?

isolated from trouble, are already
receiving, "breathing" through

the blood provided by the umbilical cord,
the poisons the mother has received

and is receiving during pregnancy.

They are not to blame;
we are, the society.

There are still people that, for
spurious, political, or economical reasons

say that no, nothing is happening,
we're not destroying Earth,

and that global warming is false.

But, as you can see,
there is a lot of evidence.

Nobody can argue this anymore
as it's scientifically proven,

and is time to act.

And here is what I want to propose to you:
to build an ecological hospital,

a sustainable hospital, or what
I like to call, a green hospital.

It is a society
and nature friendly hospital,

that solves all of the previously
explained issues.

It would be a hospital that we could see
as a sustainable company,

a socially responsible company,
that, on top of healing people,

it would respect all of the principles,

also called the three
pillars of sustainability,

and those are the social, the economical,
and of course, the ecological one.

As an example of what is wrong
with buildings in general,

and hospitals in particular, let's see
some of the data of my own center.

The IPK, who is a world leader in
tropical medicine and infectious diseases,

consumes 20 ton of oil monthly.

Imagine to spill 20 tons of oil
anywhere in the country.

And it consumes 10 megawatts
of electricity daily.

It was built without eaves
to block rain and sun light.

The huge surfaces of the roof are painted
in a dark color, absorb heat from the sun

and they transmit it
to the rooms below them.

If I could cover these surfaces
with solar panels,

well, we could cut the thick
electrical cable that feeds the center.

Plus, these are some of the materials
I use daily in my operating room.

There are materials
of high economical value:

they're more expensive every day,
and on top of that,

they leave a huge ecological print.

A lot of them come from oil.

Imagine what will happen in 30 or 50 years
when the oil world reserves run out

and they don't have anything to make
latex gloves, syringes, catheters,

or serum bags with.

How are we going
to practice medicine then?

As a doctor and a surgeon,
it scares me to think of that future

when I will have the know-how to do things
but not have the tools to do them.

At the end of the day,
these high economical value products

aren't recycled: they are taken
to a dumpster, or worse,

they are taken to a furnace where
we spend even more oil to burn them

producing toxic smoke
that is released to the atmosphere.

Meaning that it is
a very problematic cycle.

I present to you my dream:
to build a green hospital.

I want to cut the tumor
that's destroying humanity

with the scalpel
of sustainable architecture.

This dream hasn't been built yet,
but in my mind, it has been.

Is a castle on the clouds,
is the work of young architects

with whom we're developing these ideas.

And I see it as a patient and
and a planet friendly hospital.

The initial concept we have is that
of a surgical clinic,

because that's my job,
conceptualized around

four operating rooms, and everything else
is according to these surgical units.

It could be built within the city,
but in my dream I see it

on the outskirts of it,
by the sea or by a hill.

Its roofs and facades will be covered
of solar panels, solar heaters,

wind generators, in a way that
would have 100 percent energy autonomy,

while, at the same time, the internal
energy consumption would be low due to

the many technologies
that we now have available.

This way, we achieve the philosophical,
bio-ethical basic idea

I've been talking to you about.

Plus, it would be a hospital
that in its physical architecture,

and its workers' spiritual architecture,

it wouldn't scare
the patients and their families.

It would be a joyful place to work in,

and if joy is possible
when you go in as a patient,

we would work our hardest
to achieve that goal.

The time has come to achieve this,

Cuba is an ideal place to develop
this type of project.

The green hospital is a win-win situation,

is a social, economic,
ecologic, political win.

It would be an additional
way of establishing:

is a revolution and an evolution
that establish even further

Cuba's well deserved fame
in the field of medicine.

This way, we could hope that
by building green hospitals and,

also solving all the issues
that the planet has,

in 100 years from now these images
were yesterday's nightmares,

yesterday's bad memories.

And I hope that in 100 years from now
my job could cease to exist.

The evidence is enough:
is time to stop talking.

Join me to build the green hospital.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)