Guest Speakers:

Donna Staples de Boer – Speech Pathologist, Health Independence Program, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne

Donna is an experienced Speech Pathologist working with adults in neurological rehabilitation. Her current role is at the Community Rehabilitation Centre at St George’s Hospitals, part of St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, where she has been working since 2023.

Donna is a member of the Health Independence Program (HIP) Environmental Sustainability Working Party, implementing multiple initiatives aimed to reduce carbon footprint, waste, and unnecessary spend of the teams she works across. Her presentation will describe initiatives as well as outline the role of leadership prioritisation and local area champions in implementing change.

Kylie Feely, Equipment Nurse Sunshine Intensive Care, Western Health. 

Kylie Feely completed her bachelor degree in 2000 then her Critical Care Graduate certificate in 2004. In 2008, Kylie became a valued employee with Western Health Intensive Care. In 2021, Kylie was appointed the equipment nurse specialist for Sunshine ICU. 

Kylie is the lead of the Sunshine ICU Sustainability team, implementing multiple changes aimed at reducing waste, our carbon footprint and money. Kylie tested and rolled out sustainable linen in Sunshine ICU, something that has now been rolled out organisation wide. Kylie has presented this work at multiple conferences including the ANZICS quality conference 2023, ACCCN AEM 2024, Critical Care medicine conference 2024, and the greening the healthcare sector forum 2024. 

Kylie is the MacHSR fellow for 2025. Her project is to significantly reduce the amount of unopened expired products that are wasted to landfill each year through a quasi-experimental interrupted time series research project.

Guest Speakers:

A/Prof Forbes McGain - The Healthcare Carbon Lab: The beginnings of finding the carbon footprint of common medical equipment.

Dr Ben Dunne - Health Service Environmental Sustainability Competition

Speaker: Dr Monique Ryan & Dr Karen Kiang

Topics:

Top down and bottom up; why we need to tackle sustainability at every level

Kathryn Connor

Neurosurgery NUM

Dr Eugen Tan

Dr. Eugene Tan is a Mohs surgery practitioner and Dermatologist who is based in New Zealand. Prior to moving to New Zealand, he was a Consultant at The Alfred Hospital Melbourne but he and his partner now live him in a rural town in the heart of central North Island called Taupo. They reside in an acreage sustainably, where they grow their own food and maintain their own beehives. They have not owned a car for 6 years and cycle everywhere, except to this conference.

Chair: Prof Eugenie Kayak

Speaker: Dr Mike Forrester & Dr Ben Dunne

Topics:

The National Sustainable Asthma Roadmap: An example of health and environmental co-benefit oriented action

&

Reusable sterile surgical gowns and drapes – back to the future.

Renae McBrien is the Environment Consultant for Children’s Health Queensland. She also works as a radiographer, with over 23 years of clinical health experience. Renae McBrien is passionate about building sustainability into our health care system and has worked across many Brisbane hospitals to develop innovative ways to design waste out of health. Renae has been instrumental to deliver a widespread staff culture change that drives a diverse resource recovery strategy. This sustainable strategy has removed over 500 tonnes from landfill in 2021 alone through 36 single recycling streams.

Renae’s work has recently been featured on the ABC War on Waste TV series which captured over 4 million views worldwide. She has awarded the 2019 and 2020 Brisbane City Council Waste Innovation Award and the 2021 Brisbane City Council Waste Champion Award.

Sarah Barker, MinterEllison, guest speaker

Head of Climate & Sustainability Risk Governance at the Asia-Pacific's largest commercial law firm, MinterEllison, will talk about climate change is not just about polar bears and disappearing forests. She will help us think about this key environmental issue in different relevant contexts – from health outcomes to financial wealth and legal liability.

In addition to a roster of large ASX-, NYSE- and LSE-listed clients across the energy and resources, banking, financial services, industrial and retail sectors, Sarah's expertise has been called upon by institutions from the Bank of England to UN Principles for Responsible Investment. She brings the practical perspective as an experienced non-executive director in the financial services sector, having recently completed two terms on the board of one of Australia's largest pension funds.

Sarah is a non-executive director of the Commonwealth Climate & Law Initiative, sits on the SteerCo of the Australian Chapter of the international Climate Governance Initiative, and on the Australian Accounting Standards Board's Sustainability Reporting Advisory Committee.

Sarah led the team recognised as global Law Firm of the Year – Impact by Environmental Finance in 2020.

8 March 2023

Benn Dunne, Thoracic Surgeon RMH, guest speaker

Ben Dunne is a Thoracic Surgeon at Royal Melbourne Hospital. He is a member of the RACS Environmental Sustainability in Surgical Practice Working Party, represents RACS at the International Green Surgery Oversight Committee, and is Co-Convenor for the Doctors for the Environment Australia Sustainable Healthcare Special Interest Group.

He is passionate about transitioning healthcare to renewable energy sources, reducing our dependence on single-use/disposable equipment and reducing low value care.

8 February 2023

Elizabeth Skewes - How infection prevention and control can help with sustainability. 

Stef Carino - An overview of global green and healthy hospitals and some examples of how hospitals are acting in Australia. 

Dr Stefanie Carino completed her PhD in 2022 which explored sustainable foodservices in hospitals and the barriers and enablers locally and in exemplar hospitals around the world.

She currently works in a novel role as a Sustainable Food Systems Dietitian at Eastern Health, and is the Sustainable Healthcare Program Manager (GGHH) at the Climate and Health Alliance where she coordinates Global Green and Healthy Hospitals in the Pacific region.

To find out more about the Sustainable Healthcare Program: https://greenhospitals.org/

14 December 2022

Save Our Supplies LTD by Claire Lane

16 November 2022

Sustainability in Medical Imaging by Lana Van Ray, NUM

How to start and how to have an impact by Dr Jess Davies

Co-founder of TRA2SH, Anaesthetist at Austin Health

PhD candidate and lecturer, Dept Critical Care, University of Melbourne

Co-chair of Austin executive environmental steering committee

27 July 2022