TORONTO, CANADA (December 23, 2023) — Ecotex Healthcare Linen Service was referenced as a healthcare leader in research led by the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care, and released on December 23, 2023, titled “A Circular Economy Model for Hospital-Generated PPE and Medical Single-Use Plastic Waste: Demonstrating Opportunities for Reduction and Reuse,”and funded by Government of Canada through Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), explored the many synergies with other government and health-system priorities that would enhance opportunities and support for a reusable personal protective equipment, or PPE system.
Timely access to PPE was reported by numerous Canadian hospitals as the primary motivator to secure reusable PPE such as reusable gowns.
“Converting to reusable gowns with Ecotex immediately introduced a predictable supply of product for the foreseeable future,” said Altaf Stationwala, CEO, Mackenzie Health, Ontario, a hospital that receives laundry, linen services and reusable PPE from Ecotex. “The fact that it also reduced our environmental footprint was an added benefit. Mackenzie Health has now converted all of the isolation gowns used in the ICU to reusables.”
This thought was echoed by project partner University Health Network (UHN), a major, multi-hospital health system in Ontario that receives laundry, linen services and reusable PPE from Ecotex. According to Joanne Bridle, executive director, FM-PRO operations, UHN, “Early in the pandemic, UHN and Ecotex, our healthcare linen services partner, collaborated on the development of a high-volume reusable isolation gown program. This process was quickly scalable, enabling Ecotex to launder and return clean reusable isolation gowns up to three times a day during the peaks of the COVID-19 pandemic, when reusable isolation gown use had more than tripled to 120,000 gowns per week. Through this creative and sustainable local initiative, Team UHN was consistently provided with high-quality reusable isolation gowns to continue caring for patients safely during this very challenging time. Today, over 99% of the isolation gowns used at UHN are reusable.”
Cost savings were also reported by hospitals using reusable gowns. For example, UHN reported significant cost savings where reusable isolation gowns were 60% of the cost of disposables, and Toronto-area hospitals that used reusable isolation gowns saved an estimated $70-million dollars over the first two years of the pandemic.
“Healthcare laundry processing facilities are critically important support infrastructure and were invaluable in ensuring that Canadian healthcare workers had IPAC-approved, reusable PPE barrier gowns throughout the COVID pandemic and beyond,” said Randy Bartsch, executive chairman of Ecotex Healthcare Linen Service, and the incoming chair of TRSA. Our TRSA members process more than 80% of all the healthcare laundry at hospitals in Canada and are key suppliers of reusable PPE gowns and other protective medical garments and textiles.”
For more information, visit the Coalition’s project webpage at https://greenhealthcare.ca/ppe-msup/
ABOUT ECOTEX
Ecotex Healthcare Linen Service is a leading provider of contracted healthcare laundry and linen services to hospitals, sub-acute and medical facilities in the United States and Canada. Ecotex provides a comprehensive range of general linen and operating room linen processing, management and distribution services to large hospitals, medical clinics, and other commercial accounts. Ecotex is a privately held corporation with offices in Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver, and has over 1000 employees. For more information, please visit www.SmarterLinenSolutions.com.