A group of doctors are pushing for environmentally friendly answers to health problems, which will help society, not just individual patients.
But not everyone's convinced doctors should be taking on climate change.
Most people feeling sick expect medical advice from their GP. But a group of health professionals is urging doctors to go further than that and suggest changes that will benefit the environment as well as patients' health.
"We know that climate change is one of the greatest risks to human health that's around this century, and we therefore think that doctors have a really important role," says Dr Rhys Jones.
District health boards agree. Several, including Waikato and Capital and Coast, have provided free home insulation to families most in need.
But they have suffered from a lack of referrals from GPs, who said they didn't have the time to fill in all the paperwork.
"There are some doctors who are perhaps a little bit more resistant," says Dr Jones.
The New Zealand Health and Climate Council was set up by doctors and health professionals five years ago and has seen numbers climb to 300 members.
"I think we need to provide different incentives for doctors and other health professionals so that our job is not just about seeing one patient after another," says Dr Jones.
That might require a change in the way doctors are funded, giving them more time to promote greener alternatives.
The GPs 3 News spoke to said their focus was firstly on improving individual patient's health, then that of the wider population. Treating the environment was much further down the waiting list.
3 News
source: newshub archive
