Two new staff to bolster Health Care Without Harm’s efforts worldwide
Sonia Roschnik and Antonella Risso
Health Care Without Harm announced today that it has hired two new positions for its global climate team.
Sonia Roschnik will join Health Care Without Harm as International Climate Policy Director. Sonia is currently Director of the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) of England’s National Health Service (NHS), where she has worked in several capacities since 2012, helping make the NHS a world leader in health care sustainability.
During her tenure as Director of the SDU, which began in 2018, Sonia launched the Greener NHS program which includes a recent commitment to net zero climate emissions. This makes the NHS the first national health system in the world to commit to net zero.
“We are thrilled that Sonia will be joining us and deploying her tremendous knowledge and experience to support health systems around the world as they also move to decarbonize their operations and supply chain, while becoming resilient leaders in addressing the climate crisis” said Josh Karliner, Health Care Without Harm’s International Director of Program and Strategy.
Sonia, who is based in the UK, will continue in her post at NHS through June 2020, after which she will join the Health Care Without Harm team full time to support the development of subnational, national and international policies for health care climate action.
Filling the role of International Climate Technical and Research Manager is Antonella Risso. Antonella will lead Health Care Without Harm’s work to support hospitals and health systems around the world in measuring, tracking and reducing their climate footprint. She will also support health care initiatives for climate resilience and leadership.
For the past eight years, Antonella served as Technical Project Coordinator for Health Care Without Harm in Latin America, helping build the organization’s Global Green and Healthy Hospitals Network into a vibrant region-wide constellation of hospitals and health systems, while providing training, assistance and developing tracking and reporting tools for its members. She has also worked on sustainability issues with Argentina’s Ministry of Health.
“Moving into this leadership position on Health Care Without Harm’s global climate team, Antonella brings her invaluable hands-on experience working with health care facilities and decision makers in the Global South to implement sustainability on the ground,” said Jennifer Wang, Associate Director for Health Care Without Harm’s International Climate Program. “We very much look forward to her extending her skills, experience and perspective to our work around the world.”, commented.
Antonella, who is based in Argentina, will gradually transition from her current post to the global climate team over the coming months, taking on her new post full time as of July 2020.
Sonia and Antonella, along with Josh and Jennifer will make up a four-person International Climate Coordination Team. This team will lead the implementation of Health Care Without Harm’s climate strategy that aims to align the health care sector with the ambition of the Paris Agreement while meeting global health goals. They will do so by working with partners at the global level and by supporting climate staff and programs in Health Care Without Harm’s offices and partner organizations and across its network of hospitals and health systems that now spans 70 countries.
