What is the conference about?

We would like to introduce Europe’s leading conference on sustainable healthcare, CleanMed Europe, which will be held online from 29 November – 3 December 2021.

At this conference healthcare leaders from across Europe and beyond come together to share ideas, innovations, problems, and solutions for sustainability in European healthcare.

The conference is hosted by Health Care Without Harm Europe, showcases cutting-edge practices in sustainable healthcare and is the ideal venue for healthcare innovators to network and share ideas, finding new ways to drive change within their organisations and communities.

This year’s theme for CleanMed Europe is Designing tomorrow’s healthcare. As we plan our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and environmental degradation pose increasing long term threats to the health and wellbeing of people across the world. There is now an unprecedented opportunity to reshape healthcare so that it can meet the needs of tomorrow – creating a service that is sustainable, equitable, and resilient to growing environmental health threats and future pandemics.

What has the IFMSA done?

IFMSA has been working under the umbrella of its program on “Environment, Climate Change and Health”, undergoing different activities on the global level such as active engagement in panels and webinars, representing IFMSA’s stance on several relevant issues, while at the same contributing meaningfully, with external partner organizations and networks, to the global climate and environmental actions and movements.

Over the many years, IFMSA has developed a key vision on Climate Change and Health in Medical Curriculum which allowed us to develop a framework on this. The IFMSA has also sent multiple delegations to COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, to advocate for healthy action on issues such as equity for the global south, loss and damage reparations and adaptive health systems. The IFMSA has undergone and contributed to several research projects that reflect the major gaps and issues in the climate change and environmental crises such as our latest contributions to the WHO report on Gaps in Climate Change and Health Research.

Need for system change:

With the climate crisis impacting certain communities more than others, it is clear that this is an issue of racial justice, migrant justice, economic justice, disability justice and more. This only further increases the risk of reduced quality of health, due to dangerous social determinants of health. We need a justice-focused approach to mitigate and adapt to this disaster. This includes strengthening healthcare systems, divesting from fossil fuel companies, and most importantly supporting high-income countries to support lower and middle-income countries financially for loss and damage, following colonial violence. There is also a need for the health perspective to be taken into account throughout this process, especially in the national pledges made by governments on climate action. You can read more on the IFMSA Policy on Environment, Climate Change and Health here.

• Amiteshwar Singh (External Affairs Regional Assistant for Europe), Ezgi Cakir (Community Management Assistant)
• With contributions from Mohamed Eissa (Liaison Officer for Public Health issues)