Ms O’CONNOR – Minister, I want to take you to the health impacts of accelerating climate change, and you would be aware that both Tasmanian and the Australian governments have released national climate risk assessments which paint a really frightening picture of the future. Within the national climate risk assessment, in risks to people, it says that:
Extreme heat, floods, bushfires, poor air quality and communicable diseases will escalate health risks. Those with pre-existing health conditions, including mental ill health, are most at risk. This includes the very young and our older populations. People who work outdoors will also be increased risk.
Has Tas Health undertaken any work on the health risks posed by climate change and is Tas Health incorporating the understandings that have come through the state and Commonwealth climate risk assessments?
Mrs ARCHER – Thank you, Ms O’Connor. We did come prepared for this question as your colleague did raise this the other day. The government recognises that climate change is a significant and increasing threat to physical and mental health, wellbeing and healthcare services in Tasmania.
We know that climate change affects the natural environment and the social and economic systems that underpin the health of the community. A change in climate has the potential to undermine decades of health progress by increasing the risk of mental health disorders, non-communicable diseases, emergence and spread of infectious diseases and health emergencies, as you’ve mentioned.
The Department of Health is committed to addressing the effects that climate change can have on health and create a financially sustainable and environmentally responsible health system that recognises, acts on, and measures its impact on climate change and also uses advances in technology and research to drive high-value care. The department’s climate and health activity is currently guided by the responsibilities and commitments in the Long-Term Plan for Healthcare in Tasmania 2040 and Tasmania’s Climate Change Action Plan 2023-2025, which does have some health-led actions and is supported by actions under the National Health and Climate Strategy.
Our Long-Term Plan for Healthcare in Tasmania 2040 includes three priority initiatives for environmentally sustainable healthcare, which are:
- A net zero health service by 2030.
- A strategic approach to cleaner health services, which includes a commitment to develop and implement a comprehensive environmental sustainability strategy for the department; and also
- Progressing the global green and health hospital goals.
Under Tasmania’s Climate Change Action Plan 2023-25, the Department of Health-led responsibilities and commitments are to raise awareness about the links between climate change and health and the ways that communities can take action and respond to climate change. Support actions that protect vulnerable Tasmanians from the impacts of climate change such as bushfires, extreme heat and cold weather events. Support community action on climate change and our health through the Healthy Tasmania Fund, the Healthy Focus grants and this will obviously also be a continued focus under our preventive health strategy.
Ms O’CONNOR – What I’m trying to understand is Tasmania Health’s assessment of risk in the decades ahead, in terms of system management, what are we likely to see change given that it’s a fact in the event of extreme weather events, big climatic shocks, it’s the health system that sits there to deal with it in many ways with the human fallout.
That will place increasing pressure on the system, so how does the system itself, and it might be too big a question to answer now, how does the system itself make sure it’s ready to deal with that?
Mrs ARCHER – In part it is a bigger question, because there are many complex parts as you, well recognise, but I will ask the secretary to talk about some specific system approaches.
Ms O’CONNOR – Also is it Tasmania Health’s understanding that these impacts are not to be considered to be in the far-off future? It’s happening now. We’re seeing those extreme events now, deaths and injuries from it.
Mrs ARCHER – This goes to the point I made earlier to on that 20-year preventive health strategy being a whole of government reform and looking at infrastructure development, for example, or food security or greening spaces, all of those sorts of things. Also, those social determinants of health that we were talking about rather than just looking at health specifically. But I will ask the secretary to make some health specific –
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you minister and acknowledging that it’s some of our most disadvantaged people and communities who will suffer the most.
Mr WEBSTER – A number of things is in terms of the immediate, we’ve revisited our entire emergency response activities. We now have exercises internally in the department about how we’re going to respond. For instance, most recent exercises around if there is a fire event that threatens one of our district hospitals or one that surrounds Hobart, how do we actually respond to that at each of our hospitals.
Ms O’CONNOR – I am glad to hear you’re thinking about that Mr Webster.
Mr WEBSTER – We have a what’s called the Emergency Planning Response Unit whose whole role is to make sure that we’ve got the plans for each of these types of emergencies, and we are practising how we respond so that when it happens, it’s seamless, hopefully. In line with that we have part of 22 Elizabeth Street that easily converts to an emergency centre should we need to, learning from the COVID emergency and what we had to do to at the start of that.
Second part of it is and whilst we were subject to some derision in other parts of Australia, we revisited how we’re doing warnings around heat waves, for instance. We don’t use a high level as you would in Melbourne, Sydney, et cetera three days of above average temperatures where we will issue warnings around heat, et cetera because Tasmania is right-
Ms O’CONNOR – No, but that would be via text. How do you let people know?
Mr WEBSTER – We put out social media releases, et cetera, when that event is occurring so that we have the messages out there last year. It was a little bit easier because of the amount of derision we were getting for having put out warnings and temperatures like 25-26°.
CHAIR – It is hotter here when it’s that.
Mr WEBSTER – But it’s also that Tasmanians are acclimatised to lower temperatures and so these late 20s temperatures can have the same effect as maybe a 35° in far North Queensland. We need to adjust what we’re doing to our climate, not to use Australia wide standards as it would apply.
Ms O’CONNOR – Do you work with emergency services on that sort of thing? What is the structure?
Mr WEBSTER – There is the Tasmanian Emergency Management – I can’t remember what the ‘A’ stands for ‑ the TEMA arrangement – which creates a statewide structure and then under that we then build our structure. Those structures are both regional and then statewide within health. We work very closely with State Emergency Service coordination around the State Emergency Management Centre, who work closely with the regional emergency coordinators, who are generally the commanders of police, in terms of what we’re doing. It is under that, under the TEMA and the subordinate documents that exist, that creates the coordination right across government in how we respond to the emergency but also how we recover from the emergency.
