This surgeon is saving women’s lives and the earth: ‘We can’t be healthy if the world we live in is not healthy’

We carry what we learn as children far into our adult lives. Associate Professor Benita Tan is living proof of that – her mother taught her to be thrifty so she learnt never to waste anything. This has contributed hugely to her attitude towards sustainability, and she has instilled sustainable practices in both her personal and professional life.
“I was brought up being conscious of not wasting, be it water, electricity or anything else,” recalled Assoc Prof Tan, chairman of the division of surgery at Sengkang General Hospital (SKH). “Although the rationale then was cost savings, the trick is really to be sustainable.”
The senior consultant at the department of general surgery said she had the opportunity to bring sustainability to the forefront as part of the team building SKH in 2012. It allowed her to incorporate building and system designs, as well as team- and culture-building from a fresh page.
She is currently chairperson of SKH’s Go-Green Committee. In 2023, SKH collected a total of 326,575 kg of recyclables and 6,427 kg of e-waste. The hospital also achieved estimated annual energy savings of 1.84 million kWh/year, equivalent to the electricity that roughly 5,300 four-room HDB flats would consume in a month.
Staff bring their own cutlery for meals at the staff cafe, saving about 420 sets of disposable cutlery every month. Plastic usage has been reduced by eliminating cutlery packing for patient meals, saving up to one roll of plastic a day, which can pack up to 3,000 sets of cutlery.
The way the hospital operates daily has also changed, with a reduction of lighting in various spaces, timed shutdown of air-conditioning and lighting in non-clinical areas, shutdown of clinic air-conditioning and digital screens after-hours, raising of office temperature and reduction in water flow.
As a breast surgeon, Assoc Prof Tan spends a lot of time in the operating theatre and this space has become more sustainable too.
Operating theatre staff are encouraged to re-use clean instrument set wrappers and cardboard as decorations and gift wrappers during Christmas. The wrappers are also repurposed into wine bottle gift bags and tote bags to raise funds.
Old operating theatre clogs that are still usable are washed, to later be used by visitors such as vendors handling equipment, visitor surgeons or observers like students and trainees, who need to wear clogs for infection-control purposes.
Worn-out clogs are dropped into the hospital’s textile recycling bin. Located at SKH’s Green Corner on Level 1, staff, patients and visitors can pop used clothes or bags in good condition into this bin, to be donated to charity. Since its introduction in January 2023, the hospital has donated 8,804 kg of textiles.
SKH uses reusable wares for all operating theatre staff meals as well as for 20 per cent of event catering. Disposable bento boxes used to take up three or four bags of trash per meal service period but has now been reduced to just one bag.
One of the hospital’s biggest sustainability efforts is its food waste digester system. Assoc Prof Tan told CNA Women that food waste constitutes 11 per cent of total waste in Singapore. And, with 4,500 meals prepared daily at the hospital, approximately 13,800 kg of food waste was generated monthly in 2023.
Food waste digesters installed in the central kitchen break down food into wastewater. This significantly reduces waste sent for incineration as it can now be washed down the drain. Not only is it environmentally friendly, it also improves hygiene and cleanliness, while reducing odour and pest issues.
Food safety is also enhanced by minimising cross-contamination risks, as kitchen staff don’t need to handle the food waste digester.
Instilling a culture of sustainability has been the key to the hospital’s success, said Assoc Prof Tan.
“Our committee looks at big ticket items – such as the timing of our lighting, when to raise the aircon temperature and how we can repurpose things – but when it comes to what’s in each department, it’s the people who work there who see it best,” said the 53-year-old.
Assoc Prof Tan also serves as co-chair on the Committee on Sustainability (CoS) in SingHealth. She said that while there is some scepticism about sustainability from the healthcare industry as a whole, “it is largely the lack of awareness of what we can do and how we can change in practice – and this is not unique to healthcare”.
“In the last two years, there has been a concerted effort as a healthcare group to do more,” she said.
When she isn’t thinking of green initiatives at her workplace or saving women’s lives through breast surgery, Assoc Prof Tan offers her time as a volunteer doctor. Her most recent assignment was at the Olympics in Paris this year, as an appointed medical officer for the National Hockey Federation, an international field hockey federation.
“I have been serving as a volunteer since 2009 and this was my first stint at the Olympics,” she said. “I play hockey socially and this is truly an extra-curricular activity for me.”
Assoc Prof Tan also walks the sustainability talk at home. The mother-of-three has been recycling for almost 20 years and installed solar panels at her home in 2017, producing more green electricity than the family uses, selling back to the grid to help Singapore produce green energy.
“We use reusable containers when we buy food and reusable bags for grocery shopping. We use fans, with limited use of aircon, and we have a habit of switching off lights and appliances not in use,” she said.
“Other considerations include choosing local produce and greener packaging. We walk and take public transport often and I have exchanged my eight-year-old car for an electric one.”
For anyone looking to up their sustainability game, Assoc Prof Tan recommended to first improve your awareness and understand the relevance.
“Environmental health and human health are intimately related; we cannot be healthy if the world we live in is not healthy,” she said. “Protecting the environment is our social responsibility and we need to do so for our children and our children’s children.
“We also need to appreciate that we all have the capability to do our part, the key is the willingness to change the way we do things,” she added. “And for those of us who are in the position to make changes in the positions we hold, we need to be courageous to make policy and system changes.”
For the near future, Assoc Prof Tan has plans as the co-chair of SingHealth’s CoS, including working with tertiary institutions in education, research and innovations for sustainability as well as collaborating on building green spaces for the study of plants in medicine.
At home, she’ll continue to reduce consumption and waste, and get everyone to improve their recycling knowledge and habits.
She admitted she has one challenge, though. “One hard one is to get my children to drink less bubble tea, not only for the single-use plastic cups they come in, but for health reasons!” she laughed.
CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.