Asia Regional Conference on Mercury-Free Health Care

Manila — Officials from Ministries of Health and Environment, hospital managers and representatives of national health care professional associations from ten Asian countries are gathering this week in Manila to discuss substituting mercury-based medical devices with safe, accurate, affordable alternatives throughout the region.

The Asia Regional Conference on Mercury-Free Health Care, is organized by Health Care Without Harm, the World Health Organization, and the UNDP-GEF Global Health Care Waste project.

The event comes as the world’s governments continue to negotiate a global treaty to phase-out mercury use and protect environmental health. More than 100 delegates will attend the conference, including Nepal’s Secretary of Health Dr. Praveen Mishra as well as Director Rebecca Penafiel of the Philippine Department of Health – National Center for Health Facilities Development.

The conference will showcase steps taken by the Philippines, the first country in Asia to establish and largely implement a national policy to substitute mercury thermometers and blood pressure devices with safe, accurate, and affordable alternatives.

“We are setting an example for other Asian countries that mercury phase-out is doable,” said Faye Ferrer, HCWH-Southeast Asia Program Officer for Mercury in Health Care. “Knowing the dangers of mercury to health and the environment, we have nowhere else to go but bid mercury goodbye.”

The conference will also highlight initiatives for mercury-free health care currently under way in several Asian countries, including China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam.

“Governments and health systems from throughout Asia are showing that mercury-free health care is both technically and financially viable in a diversity of settings,” said Dr. Hisashi Ogawa, who coordinates WHO’s environmental health efforts in the Western Pacific Region. “This conference will help advance that cause and contribute to the global effort.”

An exhibit at the conference will give participants access to technologies available as substitutes for mercury-based medical devices, while panels will grapple with challenges such as storage and disposal of mercury waste.

“Mercury is a toxic metal that can have serious impacts on public health even at low concentrations. As it is phased out of hospitals, we need to establish ways to safely store the excess mercury,” said Dr. Jorge Emmanuel, Chief Technical Advisory of the UNDP-GEF Global Healthcare Waste Project.

International delegates will also have the opportunity to tour San Lazaro, a tertiary care 600 bed public hospital in Manila that has gone mercury free.

“At the end of the day, what we hope” said Josh Karliner, HCWH International Coordinator, “is that delegates will return home from this meeting with greater knowledge, ability and commitment to forge mercury-free health care policies in their countries.”

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.