Alumni Lunch & Learn
Environmental Sustainability in our Health Systems
Environmental Sustainability in our Health Systems
Featuring Navisha Weerasinghe (MN 2021), second-year PhD student, Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing
Tuesday January 9, 2024
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EST
Join us virtually via Zoom
Health systems in Canada are major contributors to greenhouse gases and the climate crisis, which threatens planetary health and heightens the burden of disease. As a registered nurse working in the emergency department, Navisha learned more about the outsized role health systems play in the ongoing climate crisis. Now as a second-year PhD student, Navisha envisions her research having an impact on the transformation of Canadian health systems in prioritizing environmental sustainability and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
For this talk, Navisha will present key findings from her literature review that has informed the development of her thesis proposal. Navisha’s thesis proposal will focus on studying the interactions between the medical device industry and infection control practices in the hospital setting and the environmental implications of these interactions.
Speaker Biography
Navisha Weerasinghe is a second-year PhD nursing student at the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. Navisha is a Registered Nurse (RN) currently working as a Clinical Operations Manager at Halton Healthcare and staff RN in the emergency department at Brampton Civic Hospital. Navisha’s experience as a Research Assistant with the Centre for Sustainable Health Systems sparked her interests in advancing environmentally sustainable care in health systems through research and practice. Her research interests include critically examining the role of the medical industry and the proliferation of single-use medical products, hospital infection control practices, and patient safety in relation to environmental sustainability. Navisha hopes that through her doctoral research, she will be able to transform the environmental sustainability of health systems through meaningful policy and practice changes, in addition to mitigating the ongoing climate crisis.