Developing Strategies to Establish Mercury Free Hospitals in Coimbatore
Period: 2010-11
Location: Coimbatore
Organisers: Arulagam, OSAI and District Administration
Target Group: Hospitals of Coimbatore.
Purpose: Building awareness and Developing Strategies to Establish Mercury Free Hospitals in Coimbatore.
Funding / Collaboration: Toxics Link
All societies are faced with the challenge of providing quality healthcare at an affordable value. As the relationship between human health and environmental contamination or degradation has become increasingly clear, societies must now also consider this dimension. As it turns out, one of the most important steps health care providers can take is to minimize their own sector's impact on the environment and therefore on human health itself. Such considerations are increasingly coming into play in the selection of healthcare products, such as temperature or blood pressure measuring devices that contain the global pollutant, Mercury.
In Coimbatore, the health care sector is a key source of global mercury demand and emissions. Mercury is found in many health care devices, including thermometers, blood pressure cuffs, and esophageal dilators. It is present in fluorescent lamps and dental amalgam, as well as many chemicals and measurement devices used in health care laboratories. The health care sector emits mercury waste into the environment when any of these devices are spilled or broken. Health Care generated mercury waste enters the global environment via incineration, solid waste disposal or waste water.
In this regard, TOXIC LINK, a New Delhi-based environment activist group, OSAI, and ARULAGAM worked in collaboration with health care providers, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations to completely eradicate mercury usage at healthcare sectors. To eliminate mercury usage from the health care sector is not difficult if we act on the right way. The chief mercury contamination sources include instruments that contain mercury like Thermometer, Blood pressure cuffs and esophageal dilators. It is also found in Dental amalgam, cleaning agents and fixatives for laboratory work. While starting this project we came to know a bitter fact that many of the stakeholders who have been associated with mercury don't know the ill effects of it. Due to the accuracy those mercury thermometers provide, Doctors prefer it to the digital ones though they were well aware of its ill effects. By the year 2011, We have formed a core committee involving stakeholders, NGOs which is headed by the District collector.
The members are
- District Collector, Coimbatore
- Medical Superintendent, Coimbatore Medical College
- District Engineer, TNPCB
- Joint Director of Medical and Rural Health Services, Coimbatore
- President, IMA, Coimbatore
- Secretary, IMA, Coimbatore
- President, IMA – NHB
- Mr. S. Sudhakar, Teckno Therm Industries
- Dean, GKNM Hospital
- President, Kovai Medical College Hospital
- Mr. Arun Venkatraman, Toxics Link
- Mr. K. Kalidasan, OSAI
- Member from Arulagam
- Mr. Ravindran, RAAC
Activities towards eradication
- We have created awareness about the hazardous nature of mercury in healthcare sector among the stakeholders in Coimbatore city.
- We have been sensitizing the health care personals on the hazards of mercury through information containing pamphlets, audio and video.
- Ten Hospitals were considered as target hospitals and various awareness measures were given to selected representatives from those hospitals. We have taken the process of convincing the hospital management to procure and use mercury-free instruments.
Activities in creating awareness includes
- Providing manual about the facts of mercury to the representatives.
- Brochure containing key points was issued to the representatives.
- Knowledge about the alternative equipment available without mercury was shared and discussed.
- A brain storming session was held to evolve strategies to phase out mercury from health care sectors.
- Slides and videos depicting the effects of Mercury on Human and ways to handle mercury spills were screened and discussed with those participants.
- Success stories of other hospitals which obliged to change to Mercury free were publicised to the hospital management representatives.
Further, we organised meetings with the authorities of the ten leading hospitals. They assured to eliminate the mercury equipment from their hospitals step by step. We hope within a few months, 5 of that hospitals would completely eliminate the mercury equipment. We are continuing our efforts to all other hospitals.
