Sunday, February 15, 2009

Health Care Without Harm

Imagine hospitals and other facilities built without cancer-causing materials. Picture a hospital that supports local sustainable agriculture and organic growing practices. Imagine health care facilities that offer full disclosure of materials used in the delivery of care that might be harmful to consumer health, and fragrance-free environments that do not harm patients with environmental sensitivities.

Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) is "an international coalition of hospitals and health care systems, medical professionals, community groups, health-affected constituencies, labor unions, environmental and environmental health organizations and religious groups" whose mission is "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."

While this may seem like a tall order---or perhaps a pipe dream---HCWH is indeed a growing global coalition looking closely at health issues surrounding mercury, biomedical waste, green purchasing practices, healthy building practices, pesticides and fragrances, and the widespread toxicity of materials used in the delivery of health care.

The stated goals of HCWH are:

1. Create markets and policies for safer products, materials and chemicals in health care. Promote safer substitutes, including products that avoid mercury, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic and brominated flame retardants.

2. Eliminate incineration of medical waste, minimize the amount and toxicity of all waste generated and promote safer waste treatment practices.

3. Transform the design, construction and operations of health care facilities to minimize environmental impacts and foster healthy, healing environments.

4. Encourage food purchasing systems that support sustainable food production and distribution, and provide healthy food on-site at health care facilities.

5. Secure a safe and healthy workplace for all health care workers.

6. Ensure patients, workers and communities have full access to information about chemicals used in health care and can participate in decisions about exposures to chemicals.

7. Promote human rights and environmental justice for communities impacted by the health care sector, while assuring that problems are not displaced from one community or country to another.

Here on Digital Doorway, I will be following HCWH's development and reporting on issues raised through the various campaigns already underway. The health care industry is not immune from the reverberations of its own environmental effects, and I am very grateful to have discovered this robust international campaign with a goal of reducing the toxicity created by the health care industry while increasing sustainability and responsibility in the health care arena.

4 comments:

occhiblu said...

How neat!

My boyfriend is a doctor, and is unable to eat gluten. Which means he's pretty much unable to eat in hospital cafeterias, because everything has flour. I've read horror stories from people with celiac disease being patients in the hospital and unable to eat any of the food the hospital has provided because nothing was safe.

It would be great if hospitals would start focusing their attention a bit more holistically on their patients' (and communities') health, rather than just on treating discrete diseases.

Keith "Nurse Keith" Carlson, RN, BSN, NC-BC said...

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The (very tired) jokes the comedians tell about hospital food are just too true. Painfully true.

In terms of the environmental aspects of health care, people like us who have Chemical Sensitivities or Environmental Illness have a very difficult time in hospitals and health care facilities.

The awareness is indeed growing, but it is so very slow.

Thanks for commenting.

Liberty said...

Thanks for posting this Keith. I have MCS and live in absolute terror of ever having to go to the hospital for something. I wonder how HWH plans to address staff wearing scented products (including laundry products they wash their clothes with).
I'm glad to see more awareness growing about these issues. I'm sure it won't be perfect at first but much better than nothing!

Keith "Nurse Keith" Carlson, RN, BSN, NC-BC said...

Yes, I'm also glad someone is taking an active stance. People take offense when we tell them that their scented personal products cause us symptoms, and it is a tough uphill battle, even with nurses and doctors.

Let's keep pushing the envelope and see if at least some progress can be made!

Thanks for writing!

Keith