SUSTAINABILITY FRANCOIS BESTER – GROUP ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS MANAGER, MEDICLINIC
Managing water supply during severe drought
Southern Africa is currently experiencing the worst drought in 104 years and water demand is expected to outstrip supply by 2025, which has a severe impact on the quality and quantity of water supply. Without sufficient fresh water, infection control risk increases, the quality of care decreases and equipment failures can occur.
Water management presents a unique set of measurement and reporting challenges on both a local and a global scale. First and foremost, water management is a local or regional issue. Challenges and opportunities depend on patterns of local precipitation, watersheds and aquifers, as well as the degree and nature of local use. The geographical scale and location of water use is critical. Factors that must be considered
include available volume, quality and whether water is scarce or abundant in the region concerned. For a hospital to have a comprehensive understanding of its risk exposure it must be able to identify the river basin supplying the local area with water as well as the current status and conditions concerning water supply in the applicable area. Mediclinic International is the fifth
largest private healthcare group in the world. It consists of three operating platforms: Southern Africa (South Africa and Namibia); Switzerland United Arab Emirates; and has a 29.9 per cent shareholding in Spire Healthcare in the UK, with its corporate offices situated in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The group’s management and operational structure is also divided into three operating platforms. This article will discuss only Mediclinic Southern Africa (South Africa and Namibia), which currently operates 50 hospitals throughout South Africa and three hospitals in Namibia; 77 per cent of the operational beds of Mediclinic International are located in Mediclinic Southern Africa.
Water dependent In the healthcare industry, patient care, infection control and the operation of some equipment is dependent on the supply of good quality fresh water. Without sufficient good quality fresh water, infection control risk increases, the quality of patient care decreases and various equipment failures occur.
IFHE DIGEST 2018 Mediclinic Gariep, Northern Cape. In Southern Africa, water disruptions
have increased over the past five years. It is common to experience water disruptions for an average of four to 30 days. One Mediclinic hospital has continued to operate without water supplied by the local authority for four months and water sustainability is critical under these conditions. A sustainable water management strategy for the next 10 years and beyond has therefore been developed for all Southern African operations.
Identifying risk Sustainable water management was identified as a high risk area in 2009 by the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System implemented at most of the hospitals in the group. ISO 14001 is a system that encourages good business practices to limit the environmental
Water backup storage facility.
impact a business has on its surroundings and actively assists in managing environmental impact as well as in disaster management. In November 2002, eight hospitals within the group were awarded ISO 14001 international certification. Since then a further 35 hospitals have been certified. The 43 Mediclinic Southern Africa hospitals are certified by the British Standards Institute (BSI) as accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Services (UKAS). The ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management System standard was revised in 2015 to become the ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System standard. One of the clauses within ISO 14001: 2004 addresses environmental aspect identification. The clause requires that businesses shall establish, implement and maintain a procedure(s) to identify
Francois Bester
Francois Bester is group environmental systems manager at Mediclinic. Over the past 27 years, Francois has gained experience in all aspects of health, safety and environmental legislation in South Africa. He provides specialist support to all the hospitals within the group. He joined the group in 2001 and his responsibilities include legal compliance, implementation of the
ISO 14001:2015 system, developing planned maintenance procedures, advising and monitoring new and amended legislation and influencing the hospital
environment. He obtained a National Higher Diploma in Mechanical Engineering in 1990 at the Central University of Technology of South Africa. He has been a national council member of the South African Federation of Hospital Engineering (SAFHE) for the past seven years and is the newly elected president of the organisation.
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