Sustainability of green hospitals: The example of Elazığ Fethi Sekin City Hospital

When people settled down, they built shelters to provide shelter. With the construction of shelters, their interaction with the environment has also increased. The rapidly increasing population brings with it the need for shelter, heating, consumption, etc. needs. Due to these requirements, fixed resources in the world are reduced by using them, and with this use, waste is created. Since human needs are unlimited and the resources in the world are limited, it is necessary to create alternative resources, protect those that can be exhausted, and transform or reuse those that are exhausted and waste. With the Industrial Revolution, mechanized production was introduced, the consumption of natural resources increased, and the density of the human population increased from rural to urban areas. Uncontrolled urbanization and rapid construction have brought environmental pollution, causing the decrease in green and natural areas. Thus, disruptions in the natural system have increased rapidly. This has caused natural resources to decrease or even be in danger of ending. This situation caused people to think that future generations would not be able to benefit from nature as they should, and thus people began to worry about natural extinction. Concern about the extinction of the natural ecosystem and resources created by humans has increased the interest in sustainability. Thus, sustainability began to gain importance and our future began to take shape around a sustainable environment based on this concept. Since the concept of sustainability means living in harmony and balance with the environment, the construction sector, which is the discipline in which this concept is most effective, is associated with the terms "Sustainable/Green architecture". When considered as sustainable buildings, hospitals, which are large structures built to increase the welfare and health level of the society and provide service 24 hours a day, are important buildings in terms of sustainability. Considering the damage caused by the construction sector to the natural environment, large-scale health facilities, which have one of the largest shares in the construction sector, are one of the most important structures that need to be taken precautions in terms of sustainability and whose environmental awareness needs to be increased. Hospitals; Energy, water and material consumption is high, chemical and non-chemical waste production is high, vehicle traffic also causes air pollution by producing greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore has many negative effects on the environment and causes greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is of great importance that large healthcare buildings, which have a great impact on sustainability, are built green. In this regard, in order to ensure the sustainability of the natural environment, it is mandatory to obtain a green building certificate for all medium and large-scale buildings, such as the Elazığ Fethi Sekin City Hospital, and to increase the number of public spot advertisements to ensure that people are aware of this issue, and to increase the number of advertisements at certain times, especially in public institutions. organizing awareness-raising seminars, providing training in educational institutions to ensure awareness of sustainability and green buildings, and providing extra support during the construction phase to ensure that all health buildings and other large-scale buildings, especially large-scale health buildings, are built in accordance with the green building criteria. It was concluded that in order to alleviate the extra economic burden required during the construction phase of all healthcare buildings and other large-scale structures, especially large-scale healthcare buildings, in line with the green building criteria, technical and financial support should be provided to contractors, inspections should be carried out during the construction phase, and finally, barcodes showing green building certificates should be implemented in existing and newly constructed structures.