Davao hospital 50% mercury-free

DAVAO Medical Center (DMC) is more than halfway through replacing its equipment that uses mercury.

DMC chief Dr. Leopoldo Vega said the hospital is complying with the World Health Organization (WHO) policy discouraging the use of medical equipment that use mercury and the DMC is going through it by phase.

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"We are 65 percent through with the replacement of thermometers and sphygmometers that has mercury. We are doing this by phase because we cannot go about it instantly. It would be very costly. We have started replacing these equipments since last year with battery operated ones that do not contain mercury," Vega said in an interview Thursday in his office.

A thermometer is used to determine the temperature of the human body, usually placing it under the armpit of a person. A sphygmometer is used to determine the blood pressure of a person.

DMC's committee on environment safety and sanitation said it has disposed of the thermometers in a safe manner.

Rene Celeredad, who heads the committee, said the equipment, which broke, were disinfected.

"We disinfected them so that the mercury would not be poisonous," Celeredad said.

Vega said the hospital aims to replace all the remaining equipment with mercury by the end of this year.

According to the WHO policy paper “Mercury in Health Care,” health-care facilities are one of the main sources of mercury release into the atmosphere because of emissions from the incineration of medical waste.

WHO said mercury is a naturally occurring heavy metal. It is highly toxic, especially when metabolized into methyl mercury. It may be fatal if inhaled and harmful if absorbed through the skin. Around 80 percent of the inhaled mercury vapor is absorbed in the blood through the lungs.

Aside from that, mercury may cause harmful effects to the nervous, digestive, respiratory, immune systems and to the kidneys, besides causing lung damage, WHO said.

Adverse health effects from mercury exposure can be tremors, impaired vision and hearing, paralysis, insomnia, emotional instability, developmental deficits during fetal development, and attention deficit and developmental delays during childhood.

Recent studies suggest that mercury may have no threshold below, which some adverse effects do not occur, WHO added. (JCZ)