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Health Care Without Harm, in association
with the United Nations Environment Programme, has planned four regional
workshops on Alternatives to Mercury in the Health Care Sector. The
planned workshops began in South East Asia (Manila) on January 25-26,
2006, and then moved to South America (Buenos Aires) August 3-4, 2006.
The next workshops will be held in Southern Africa (Johannesburg) on
October 24-26 2007, and in South Asia (Indian city to be determined)
on dates to be determined.
Outcomes of these regional workshops will
include:
- Raised awareness among key regional healthcare sector leaders
about workplace, local and global hazards associated with exposure
to mercury and methyl mercury;
- Increased capacity within the health care sector to take steps
to substitute affordable and reliable alternatives for mercury-containing
devices and products;
- The formation of national and/or regional working groups to build
capacity and develop strategies to substantially reduce and ultimately
eliminate mercury use from the health care sector.
The final reports for the SE Asian and
South American conferences are available here.
These workshops are an excellent platform
from which to promote WHO’s
new policy on mercury in the health care sector. They are also good
complements to UNEP’s
Regional Awareness Raising Workshops on Mercury pollution.
And they abuild on Heatlh Care Without
Harm’s ten years experience in collaborative
work with hospitals, health care workers, other NGOs, medical device
suppliers, government ministries and international agencies to address
mercury pollution.
HCWH understands that there exist other,
much more significant sources of mercury pollution than the health care
sector. For us, these workshops and the practical activities that follow
from them represent early steps. They can help reduce total releases
of mercury to the environment while, at the same time, they help to
deepen understanding and awareness within the national health sector
of the severe consequences associated with mercury pollution. In this
regard, they help to develop the experiential base and the political
will required to advance toward longer term solutions such as national
and international legal instruments.
Workshop Goals:
Short Term Objectives:
Convene representatives from medical associations, hospitals, government
ministries, medical device manufacturers, health-related NGOs and others
in each region to:
- Discuss the hazards of mercury containing medical devices to
health care workers, patients and the global environment.
- Discuss proper clean up procedures for spills or accidents, and
safe disposal of mercury containing medical devices.
- Discuss safe, effective, environmentally sound and economically
viable alternatives to mercury containing medical devices.
- Discuss the new WHO policy on mercury in the health care sector.
- Learn from the experiences of counterparts in other developing
countries as well as in the North.
- Develop an understanding of the global context of mercury use
in the health care sector, how it relates to broader environmental
and health problems caused by mercury, and how work in the health
care sector fits in to global efforts to eliminate mercury.
- Establish a mercury-free health care working group in each region
to develop an action plan for mercury elimination in the health
care sector.
- Produce a final report summarizing the findings of the four workshops.
Medium Term Objectives:
Follow through on each workshop (2006-2008) will include:
- Expand the health care sector’s and the broader society’s
awareness of, engagement in and capacity to address the problem
and the solutions to mercury pollution.
- Develop models and examples of mercury free health care, in large
and small scale health care settings.
- Help develop demand and viable markets for alternative medical
devices while reducing the demand for and supply of mercury based
devices.
- Develop and begin implementing regional action plans to promote
alternatives to mercury in health care.
- Develop training programs on alternatives to mercury in the health
care sector.
- Engage health care workers as public spokespeople on the hazards
of mercury pollution.
Long Term Goals:
- Phase mercury out of the health care industry, globally .
- Replace mercury in health care with viable, cost-effective alternatives
and safely dispose of mercury as it is phased out of the health
care system.
- Contribute to broader efforts -- governmental and inter-governmental
– to eliminate environmental contamination from mercury.
For more information contact:
Joshua Karliner
International Team Coordinator, Health Care Without Harm
1958 University Ave
Berkeley CA 94704
USA
ph: 1- 510-848-5343, ext 107#
www.noharm.org
Rico Euripidou
Research Manager
groundWork
Box 2375
Pietermaritzburg 3200
South Africa
Tel: +27 (0)33 342 5662
rico@groundwork.org.za
www.groundwork.org.za
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