The
Initiative
Health Care Without Harm and the World Health Organization
are co-leading a global initiative to achieve virtual elimination
of mercury-based thermometers and sphgmomanometers over the
next decade and their substitution with accurate, economically
viable alternatives.
The initiative is a component of the UN Environment Programme's
Mercury Products Partnership.

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News
and Events
Feb. 3, 2010
-Philippines
Philippine Mercury Phase-Out
Becomes Electoral Issue
Adding to the
list that various groups have laid out before presidential
candidates and their parties, Health Care Without
Harm-Southeast Asia challenges them to “make
green health care part of their agenda”, and
all voters to support “green health candidates.”
Its main thrust is for the implementation of the
Department of Health’s Administrative Order
(DoH-AO) 21 mandating the gradual phase-out of mercury
in all Philippine health care facilities and institutions.
>>
Read more
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December
2009 - China
Workshop for Promoting Mercury-Free
Healthcare Held in Beijing
Mercury-free
founding member Global Village of Beijing held a workshop
for Promoting Mercury-Free Healthcare attended by WHO,
the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention,
the Ministry of Health, as well as several hospitals
and medical device manufacturers.
>>
Read more |
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October
2009 - Brazil
Hospitals of SÃO PAULO Health Public Network
replace mercury devices
The City of São
Paulo is the first in Brazil to eliminate the use of
devices containing mercury in its public hospitals.
To date thirty four public hospitals/emergency rooms
and eighty five primary health care centers have been
recognized for their elimination of mercury devices.
This adds to the more than 100 private hospitals in
Sao Paulo that have already made the switch.
>>
Read more |
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Europe
EU Report: Mercury
Blood Pressure Devices Not Necessary in Clinical Settings.
A new European
Union report confirms that mercury sphygmomanometers
are not necessary in routine clinical practice. The
report also finds that mercury-based sphygmomanometers
are "not essential" for calibration, but rather
only temporarily for validation and ongoing epidemiological
studies.
In this sense,
environmental and Health NGOs call for a rapid process
to phase out of mercurycontaining blood pressure devices
in healthcare.
Read
the report
Read
the letter to the European Comissioner |
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| Mexico
City |
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The Health
Secretariat of Mexico City —which oversees a
health care system of more than 28 major hospitals
and hundreds of health centers— has joined the
HCWH-WHO Global Initiative to substitute mercury-based
medical devices with safer, economically viable alternatives.
Mexico is the third mega-city, after Buenos Aires
and New Delhi commit to mercury-free health care.
>>
More Information (in Spanish)
>>
Read Regional Press Release (in Spanish)
>>
Read the Letter from the Secretary of Health (in Spanish) |
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Philippines
Health Care—One Year into Mercury Phase-out.
General Santos
City –Health Care Without Harm, the World Health
Organization and the Philippines Department of Health
are organizing a month-long series of activities to
highlight Administrative Order 21 (AO21) that mandates
all Philippine Health Care Facilities and Institutions
to phase-out mercury containing devices such as mercury
thermometer and sphygmomanometer.
It has been a year
since the Department of Health (DoH) issued Administrative
Order (AO) 21 mandating the two-year phase-out of all
mercury-containing devices in all Philippine hospitals
by September 2010. For a list of activities click below.
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The
Issue
Mercury, one of the world's most ubiquitous
heavy metal neurotoxicants, has been an integral part of many
medical devices, most prominently thermometers and sphygmomanometers.
These devices break or leak with regularity,
adding to the global burden of mercury in the environment
and exposing health care workers to the acute effects of the
metal itself.
The health care sector around the world is
moving to replace mercury-based medical devices with affordable,
accurate and safer alternatives.

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