ILOCOS REGION SIGNS GREEN HEALTH COVENANT

NEWS RELEASE

February 1, 2010

ILOCOS REGION SIGNS GREEN HEALTH COVENANT
Mercury phase-out, other green health initiatives on the horizon

In a gathering of doctors, nurses and other health care workers, one would expect a health agenda to start off the event and a health plan to close it. True enough, in the 1st regional conference organized by Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia (HCWH-SEA) and the Department of Health-Center for Health Development I (DoH-CHD), 637 health care workers from all over Ilocos region signed the Green Health Covenant with a promise of a greener health care.

With representatives from both public and private hospitals and Rural Health Units (RHUs) from Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union and Pangasinan, the health care sector are ever more keen on mercury phase-out and want their local and national candidates to know it.

The Green Health Covenant is a pledge of support from voters to encourage their candidates to support a mercury-free Philippine health care by 2010 and other green health programs on proper health care waste management and a health care setting that is safe from toxic chemicals and responsive to climate change.

According to Dr. Eduardo Janairo, out-going DoH-CHD Region 1 Director, the conference is a badly needed conference to solve two issues—how to implement the law and how to fill-in the gap or what needs to be done in between the law and its full implementation.

DoH signed Administrative Order 21 in August 2008 mandating the gradual phase-out of mercury devices in all Philippine health care facilities and institutions by September 2010.

“Each and everyone have a role to play. To implement the law, you make resolutions. To the health workers, be the disciple who will implement the law,” said Janairo.

Green Ilocos
While mercury phase-out and other green initiatives are happening all over the globe, hospitals in the Ilocos region are not left out.

Two hospitals in La Union, the Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center and the Lorma Medical Center presented the greening initiatives for their hospitals.

Both hospitals started phase-out of mercury devices late 2008 and early 2009.

According to Faye Ferrer, HCWH-SEA Program Officer for Mercury, problems surrounding mercury phase-out are not as many as it did several years ago.

“The issue of accuracy and affordability of alternatives to mercury devices have already been answered. Medical organizations have attested time and again that non-mercurial devices are as accurate as mercury devices. In terms of affordability, alternatives are no longer as pricey as they used to be. What is left is the intermediate disposal area for the phased-out mercury devices,” said Ferrer.

HCWH-SEA is likewise doing a project with the United Nations Development Program-Global Environmental Facility (UNDP-GEF) (1) wherein two hospitals in the country will be recipient of proper trainings on proper health care waste management and new alternative waste treatment facility. These hospitals will serve as model for Southeast Asia in terms of proper health care waste management, employing appropriate non-incineration treatment technologies and joining hospitals around the world in using mercury-free devices.

One of the hospitals is the Pangasinan Provincial Hospital.

“With these hospitals leading in the region plus other hospitals who are already phasing-out mercury in their facility or others who have successfully phased-out mercury, we believe the Green Health Covenant will go beyond the May 2010 election.”

For more information on the Green Health Covenant and updates on the regional conferences on mercury phase-out and proper health care waste management, please visit: http://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)UNDP GEF is a 3-year project that aims to demonstrate and promote best practices and techniques for health care waste management to minimize or eliminate releases of persistent organic pollutants and mercury to the environment in eight selected countries—Argentina, India, Latvia, Lebanon, Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania and Vietnam. It will likewise demonstrate the effectiveness of non-burn health care waste treatment technologies.