News Releases - 2002

November 18, 2002

West Park Healthcare Centre wins Energy Conservation Award

Toronto - West Park Healthcare Centre has won a Green Health Care Award for its 15-year journey to improve energy efficiency on the campus of the rehabilitation, complex continuing care and long-term care facility. The award was presented by the Ontario Hospital Association and the Canadian Coalition for Green Healthcare last night at the hospital association's annual awards dinner.

West Park was recognized in the Energy Conservation category. Other categories included Pollution Prevention and Overall Leadership. The award acknowledges that West Park has greatly reduced its impact on the environment as a result of reduced energy use.

Through a two-phase project involving comprehensive electrical and mechanical system retrofits that took advantage of new technology, West Park has successfully reduced electrical demand on its campus over 15 years by 19,544 kilowatts.

"This has resulted in total electrical consumption savings of 25,379,160 kilowatt hours," says Barry Monaghan, president and CEO of the centre. "Our natural gas consumption has been reduced by 240,858 metres/cubic/foot. Between 1998 and 2001 alone, West Park Healthcare Centre has avoided almost 24,042 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere (based on 50% of electricity savings from fossil fuel power plants.)"

In addition, through the use of new lighting technology, patients and staff experience better lighting quality and distribution. The automated systems have resulted in better equipment control, tenant comfort and space feedback information.

The Green Health Care Awards were implemented one year ago by the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care, which is working to minimize the adverse environmental and human health impact of Canada's health care system. The coalition encourages facilities to adopt resource conservation and pollution prevention prinicples and effective environmental management systems without compromising the safety and care of patients.

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For more information, please contact:

Sandra Fawcett, Director, Public Relations
Phone: (416) 243-3730
Email: sandra.fawcett@westpark.org