‘GREEN VISAYAS IS THE GOAL’

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 26, 2009

‘GREEN VISAYAS IS THE GOAL’

Dumaguete City – “If Metro Manila can go green, we are sure the Visayas can go greener.” This is the challenged posed by Faye Ferrer, Program Officer for Mercury of Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia (HCWH-SEA) in the 2nd Healthcare Waste Management Summit: Pollution-Free Philippines through Effective, Efficient, Equitable Management of Healthcare Waste: a Visayas-wide Initiative.

Ferrer gave an update of the Department of Health (DoH)’s Administrative Order 21 which aims for the gradual phase-out of all mercury-containing devices in all Philippine hospitals by 2010. A measure supported globally by the World Health Organization (WHO) which has an initiative with HCWH aiming to substitute mercury-based medical devices by 2017.

“Mercury pollution is by far one of the worst in the world. Mercury is a neurotoxin meaning it targets the brain and the most vulnerable population are women and children,” she said.

In September 2008, DoH issued AO 21 and to date, more than 50 hospitals have phased-out or are phasing out mercury devices in hospitals.

“Even with these 50 hospitals, we cannot say that the implementation of the AO is satisfactory.”

In February this year, HCWH-SEA conducted a survey of 100 hospitals in Metro Manila. Only 40 hospitals have responded—22 public and 18 private.

Result says that of the 40 hospitals, 80% received a copy of the AO from the DoH. “This is much lower that what we are expecting in Metro Manila since they are closest to the main office of the DoH,” said Ferrer.

Additionally, survey says 77.5% have discontinued the use of mercury thermometer but only 55% have conducted the mercury audit.

“A mercury audit is a necessity. Before we can phase-out mercury devices and replace them with alternatives, we at least need to know how many more devices we need to replace,” Ferrer added.

“And far worst, of the 40 respondents, only 42.5% have done a minimization plan and only 20% have prepared a new purchasing policy requiring vendors to sign a mercury-content disclosure agreement,” she exclaimed.

She added, “we hope that the implementation in the Visayas region will be better than this.

“We do not want to wait for the 2017 global target. We have AO 21, our aim is to phase-out in 2010 or earlier.”

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.


Contact:
Sonia G. Astudillo, Communications Officer, +63 918 9182369, sonia@hcwh.org
Faye Ferrer, Program Officer for Mercury, +63 920 9327151; faye@hcwh.org