Eight ways that modern medicine is oil dependent

Most of our modern medical system is oil-dependent, just like the rest of society. Oil has been so cheap for so long that it has become a pervasive presence in health care delivery. This impact is most obvious when one looks at the transport systems required to maintain a health service. Just as suburbia has been subsidised by the endowment of cheap and plentiful oil, modern medical care is predicated on the cheap movement of things and people from one place to another. This cheap transportation is so crucial that the system must fall apart if no alternatives are developed before oil becomes scarce and even more expensive. This article examines these issues from the perspective of large hospitals - they represent one of the most centralised expressions of health care delivery, and will probably become one of the first major casualities of peak oil.

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