Argentina Ministry of Health Issues Resolution Ending Purchase of Mercury Thermometers and Sphygmomanometers in the Country’s Hospitals

Buenos Aires — It is the beginning of the end for mercury thermometers and blood pressure devices in Argentina. This achievement was the culmination of an ongoing effort by a network of professionals and NGOs who have organized as part of Health Care Without Harm in the country.

The Minister of Health, Graciela Ocaña signed Resolution 139/2009, published yesterday in the Official Bulletin. The Resolution instructs all hospitals and health care centers in the country to purchase mercury-free thermometers and sphygmomanometers. It also convenes a working group of dentistry, medical technology and environmental health specialists to begin a process to gradually phase-out other uses of mercury Argentina.

Verónica Odriozola, Latin America coordinator for Health Care Without Harm responded to the news remarking that "This achievement has been possible thanks to all of the doctors and nurses that form part of the HCWH network. They were receptive and supportive when we first proposed eliminating mercury in their hospitals; they worked hard in their departments and on their wards to replace these devices and assure that the health care sector would not continue contributing to this global environmental health problem."

The Toxicology Department of the University of Buenos Aires Medical School along with the Argentine Toxicology Association also played important roles in supporting the substitution of mercury in health care in the country.

Bringing together this diversity of experiences and initiatives, Health Care Without Harm proposed to Argentina’s Ministry of Health that they forge regulations that reflected these efforts. "This, together with pressure in the form of a letter to the Minister of Health signed by health care professionals from across the country, is how the resolution was born," said Odriozola.

Argentina is now a world leader in the effort to eliminate mercury from health care. The country joins the Philippines, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark, all of whom have national policies mandating mercury-free medical devices. It also joins the European Union, Uruguay and Taiwan, which all have announced the phase-out of mercury thermometers nationally — or in the case of the EU, regionally. On an international level, Argentina is implementing the World Health Organization policy which calls for a phase-out of mercury-based medical devices.

In Argentina, prior to the Ministry of Health’s resolution, more than 70 health care institutions had already joined HCWH’s efforts to foster mercury-free health care. The City of Buenos Aires, as well as the provinces of Chaco, Jujuy and La Rioja, along with hospitals from Córdoba, Chubut, Neuquén, Río Negro, San Juan, Santa Fe y Tierra del Fuego all had signed a letter of intent and are currently in the midst of replacing their facilities’ mercury-based medical devices.

In December last year, HCWH and the World Health Organization launched a collaborative global initiative to substitute 70 percent of all mercury-based medical devices with affordable, accurate and safer alternatives by 2017.

See Resolution 139/2009 Public Health Plan for Minimization of Exposure to and Replacement of Mercury (pdf).

Health Care Without Harm is an international coalition of more than 500 organizations in 53 countries, working 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. Visit the HCWH website for more information.