Budget hit for half-hearted campaign on mercury phaseout

A campaign to stop the use of mercury is bound to fail unless the government pursues it vigorously and provides it with adequate support.

An environmental group raise this concern on Friday noting that the Budget department has yet to release the funds earmarked for the campaign three months before the deadline for the mercury phase-out in state run hospitals and health facilities lapses in September.

Faye Ferrer, Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia (HCWH-SEA) program officer for Mercury Health Care, sought a stronger policy against mercury in compliance with DOH Administrative Order 21.

AO 21 mandates the gradual phase-out of all mercury-containing devices in all Philippine health care facilities and institutions by September 2010. Mercury is toxic and destroys the earth’s protective layer against the sun’s rays. It has been banned in European countries since 1991.

While the Philippines is leading in terms of having a national policy on mercury phase-out in health care, Ferrer however said the government is wanting in implementation.

There are 1,851 hospitals all over the country, not to mention the rural health units and other small health facilities controlled by the local government.

But barely three months into the DoH imposed deadline, several facilities are still at a loss as to the source of funding for mercury alternative.

Mercury thermometers and sphygmomanometers are still readily available in big and small drugstores operating in the country, Ferrer said.

Another concern raised by those already phasing-out mercurial devices is on the longer disposal area for phased-out devices.

The World Health Organization issued a two-year progress report on the Global Mercury-Free Health Care Initiative which highlights the mercury phase-out and substitution happening around the globe as well the national policies being enacted by different governments.

The global initiative aims to phase-out the demand for mercury-containing fever thermometers and sphygmomanometers by at least 70% and to shift the production of these mercury-containing devices to accurate, affordable and safer non-mercury alternatives.

According to the report, “momentum is growing and mercury-free health care is increasingly becoming the status quo in many countries.

It further stated that the Global Initiative is moving closer to a tipping point that will shift the dynamics of supply and demand in the global thermometer and blood pressure device markets away from mercury and toward the alternatives. –Macon Araneta and Angelica Carballo, Manila Standard Today