A COVENTRY PhD student has been named as Royal College of Nursing’s Early Career Researcher of the Year.
Ebenezer Akore Yeboah – accident and emergency nurse – has won an award for his work exploring the role of nurses in tackling the climate impact of healthcare which has spanned more than 50 countries.
The student moved to the UK from Ghana just over two years ago and joined the university’s Research Centre for Healthcare and Communities.
His passion for nursing inspired him to begin researching how NHS workers can reduce their carbon footprint – the NHS accounts for 4 per cent of England’s total carbon footprint and creates as many emissions each year as the whole of Croatia.
Ebenezer, 27, said: “I can see climate change happening all around us and globally, and when people are displaced by situations created by climate change, health professionals are the ones to look after them and when we are doing that we are adding to the carbon footprint.
“I want this research to help empower nurses to be able to fight climate change and we all need to do our bit. The reactions have been fantastic and people say this is something they haven’t thought about before.”
He recently carried out a survey of over 500 nurses from 56 different countries to understand how their work affects climate change – with the Research Centre for Healthcare and Communities.
Ebenezer’s research highlighted reducing excessive use of single use items and adding sustainability to nursing and midwifery curriculum.
Ebenezer said this would mean that ‘what has been planted in education would be watered in practice’.
Lindsay Meeks, regional director of the RCN in the West Midlands, said: “Research has always been one of the pillars of nursing and it always will be.
“Advancements in patient care rely on every new generation of nurses being curious about the evidence that underpins professional practice, and Ebenezer’s award is a credit to him and exemplifies just how important the voice and visibility of nurses is to research.”
