ENVI-HEALTH GROUP CALLS ON LOCAL GOVT TO IMPLEMENT MERCURY PHASE-OUT

NEWS RELEASE

February 9, 2010

ENVI-HEALTH GROUP CALLS ON LOCAL GOVT TO IMPLEMENT MERCURY PHASE-OUT
63 Cagayan Valley health units supportive of green health agenda

Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia (HCWH-SEA) today issued a call to all local government units (LGUs) to implement mercury phase-out in health care.

“While the Department of Health (DoH) Administrative Order 21 mandates the gradual phase-out of mercury in all Philippine health care facilities and institutions, we are alarmed that Rural Health Units (RHUs) are so behind in its implementation,” said Faye Ferrer, HCWH-SEA Program Officer for Mercury in Health Care.

In the 2nd regional conference on mercury phase-out and proper health care waste management in Tuguegarao City, majority of the 96 RHUs reported that they were unaware of AO 21. DoH Cagayan Valley likewise admitted that when it comes to information dissemination, priorities have been government and private hospitals.

Since the devolution of health services (1) in the early 1990s, the government devolved the management and delivery of health services from the national DoH to locally elected provincial, city and municipal governments. This means that planning, management, decision-making and even revenue raising and resource allocation for the RHUs are now managed by the LGUs.

“Planning and funding for mercury phase-out is now on the shoulders of the LGU. However, information dissemination would still have to be supported by the DoH,” said Ferrer.

“Our worry is that this situation in Region 2 may be the same all over the country. This is why we are appealing to our local leaders to help your health units implement mercury phase-out.”

“We are also reminding the national DoH and respective regional Center for Health Development (CHD) that they should be closely working with the LGUs in disseminating AO 21’s importance, relevance and implementation and their commitment to the global elimination of mercury in health care.”

Support for Green Health Agenda
Of the 83 hospitals and 96 Rural Health Units (RHU) in the Cagayan Valley region, 63 health facilities have expressed support to the Green Health Covenant pledging to encourage their candidates who will be the future LGUs to be supportive of greening the health care system.

The 63 facilities include 7 government hospitals, 23 private hospitals, 29 RHUs, 3 district hospitals and 1 rural sanitation office from all over Cagayan Valley region. Local reporters from Cagayan and Nueva Vizcaya provinces likewise expressed full support to the Covenant.

The Covenant now has more than 700 signatures from Regions 1 and 2 and online signatories.

Several hospitals in the region have also shown examples that the phase-out is doable. One hospital is the De Vera Hospital in Santiago City, Isabela who started mercury phase-out in 2007 (prior to AO 21) and is now into total mercury sphygmomanometer phase-out.

Another hospital is the St. Paul Hospital Tuguegarao who is one of the Do No Harm Award recipients. The hospital presented not just mercury phase-out but proper waste management and boasted of their bio-kita (bio-earnings) from recycled wastes.

Mercury for thought
The Philippines has a total of 1,847 hospitals and 98,000 beds.

“Imagine the number of mercurial thermometers and sphygmomanometers used in these facilities. Then add those from RHUs, municipal, district and provincial hospitals. How much longer are we planning to pollute our health and our environment if our local leaders will not act now?”

The traveling Covenant, is electronically distributed at www.GreenHealthCovenant.multiply.com.

HCWH is an international coalition of more than 470 organizations in 52 countries, working to transform the health care sector worldwide, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment. For more information on HCWH-SEA, see www.noharm.org.ph.


Sonia G. Astudillo, +63 918 9182369, sonia@hcwh.org
Faye Ferrer, +63 920 9327151; faye@hcwh.org

(1) With the devolution of the health services, Barangay health units are now managed by the barangay and municipal governments, Rural Health Units by the municipal government, City health by the city government, Municipal, district and provincial hospitals by the provincial government, and regional hospitals and medical center levels by the DoH.