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Mater Dei Hospital won the Environment Award for Industry 2009 in the category of Conservation for Sustainable Development. These awards, launched by the Cleaner Technology Centre, are designed to recognise and promote organisations that have made a significant contribution to environmental protection during 2008.

The award was presented to a hospital delegation on 10th December, at the Corinthia Palace Hotel, Attard.

Mater Dei Hospital was recognised for its adoption of a holistic programme earmarked to consolidate the newly operational building engineering processes geared with environmental protection in mind. During 2008, Mater Dei Hospital started using various environmental friendly features which were included in the design phase. These include double glazed windows, energy saving lamps and electronic ballasts for fluorescent tubes and motion sensing detectors in many areas to automatically switch on the lighting fixtures.

Rain water is collected separately and channelled to an apposite soaking reservoir, which recharges the Wied Ghollieqa Valley water aquifer by percolating into the valley bed rock to sustain the water table. Grey water, from wash basins and showers, is treated and the resulting water used for irrigation purposes of its soft and hard landscaping throughout the hospital.

As from 2008, all hospital wards had easy access to a newly introduced colour coded recyclable waste wheeled bin for the collection of recyclable waste from clinical areas.

As a result, Mater Dei Hospital staff managed to regularly recycle tons of packaging cardboard, paper and plastics and the amounts of clinical waste collected per day has decreased. A significant reduction in water was achieved through the introduction of a waterless system for hospital cleaning. Concurrent with this Mater Dei Hospital concluded its hard and soft landscape environment upgrade in order to furnish its original green village concept, and thus make its environment more appealing to the internal and external stakeholders.

In line with Government policies, during 2008, a Green Leader was appointed for Mater Dei Hospital and together with other key staff stakeholders, managed to ensure that the majority of Mater Dei Hospital staff members were informed and briefed about environmental friendly initiatives. This was achieved through a wider, active network of Green Focal Points across all areas of Mater Dei Hospital.

These Green Leaders are individuals from any level and profession who wish to make a difference to the environment through their day to day work. Amongst other, these Green Focal Points actively participated in rehabilitating an extensive hospital sided area with indigenous trees and shrubs, and even volunteered to own, upgrade and maintain other internal Hospital courtyards.

Through the cooperation of staff, these initiatives were additionally extended to the Hospital’s Materials Management and Logistics Department, which managed to save five figure public funds in disposable items, mostly plastics, even whilst introducing other such requirements into the Hospital 5-star services.

The data presented by Mater Dei Hospital shows that the trends established in 2008 have been sustained and strengthened throughout the current year, 2009.