At the height of mercury spill at the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Health Care Without Harm-Asia calls for a review of proper and safe storage of phased-out mercury devices from health care facilities. The group also calls on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) to expedite the infrastructure or system in the collection and proper storage for the Philippines.
“It has been almost five-years since hospitals started phasing-out their mercury containing devices, hospitals have done their part in putting a stop in the use of this toxic chemical, it’s now DENR-EMB’s turn to provide for a safe, long term-storage for phased-out mercury,” said Faye Ferrer HCWH-Asia Safer Chemicals Campaigner.
“We commend the immediate response of the Department of Health (DoH) in terms of the clean-up, however, as much as we do not want to blame anyone, we see that in the implementation of the phase-out, we failed to look at the whole picture: the phase-out, on-site storage of phased-out mercury, and regular monitoring of the storage area.
HCWH-Asia has campaigned for the phase-out of mercury devices in health care facilities as early as 2006, and has supported the DoH Administrative Order 0021 signed in 2008 mandating the gradual phase-out of mercury-containing devices in all of Philippine health care facilities and institutions. “Hospitals have complied with the AO, local government units have supported it as well but still, the problem of final storage has been the biggest hurdle in the issue of mercury phase-out.”
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Global Environment Facilty (UNDP-GEF) in 2010 released a guidance on proper storage of phased-out mercury from health care .
HCWH-Asia calls for the immediate inventory of existing mercury devices in storage in all hospitals and calls on hospitals to strictly enforce proper storage requirements. “Several hospitals in the Philippines are already doing this,” said Ferrer. “Had the guidelines been properly followed, there is a very low chance that spillage will happen.”
“There is also a need for regular education and training of all hospital personnel on handling phased-out mercury devices,” said Ferrer.
In January of this year, as part of the final text of a global mercury treaty, the world’s governments agreed to end the manufacture, import, and export of all mercury-based medical devices—effectively phasing them out by 2020. The Minamata treaty is set to be signed in Japan in October.
“The Philippines has made a mark as one of the first countries to stop the use of mercury containing devices in health care facilities, what we need now is a more concerted effort in ensuring that future spills will not happen, and that a safer, more permanent storage site would be identified at the soonest possible time, said Ferrer.