Healthy
Health Care
Creating
healthy hospitals and elder care facilities
Why
Focus on Health Care Facilities?
There are 5,810 registered hospitals in the U.S. that see about 32
million inpatients, 83 million outpatients and 108 million emergency room
patients per year. Thus a large number of individuals may be exposed to
toxic pesticides in health care settings. Some hospital patients are especially
vulnerable to the toxic effects of pesticides.
Hospitals have a special
obligation to demonstrate leadership in instituting effective and safer
pest management in keeping with the medical profession's basic tenet of
"first, do no harm."
Fortunately, a method
of pest control called Integrated Pest Management (IPM) eliminates or
greatly reduces the need to respond to pests with hazardous pesticide
products and helps ensure a healthier environment for hospital patients,
staff, and visitors. The focus of IPM is to prevent pest problems by reducing
or eliminating sources of pest food, water, and shelter in hospitals and
on their grounds and by maintaining healthy lawns and landscapes. The
first approach to controlling a pest outbreak is improving sanitation,
making structural repairs (such as fixing leaky pipes and caulking cracks),
and using physical or mechanical controls such as screens, traps and weeders.
A least hazardous chemical is used only when other strategies have failed.
If a pesticide is used, the hospital community must be notified prior
to the application in order to take necessary precautions.
IPM strategies are
successfully being implemented at schools, parks, government facilities
and hospitals nationwide. For example, IPM programs at Oregon Health and
Sciences University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University,
the City of San Francisco, Seattle Parks and Recreation Department, New
York City Public Schools, the General Services Administration demonstrate
that IPM can be economically and effectively implemented.
The 2003 report Healthy
Hospitals by Beyond Pesticides and Health
Care Without Harm, along with the 1995 reports, A Failure to Protect
by Beyond Pesticides and the New York Attorney's General report Pest
Management in New York State Hospitals, adds to the data available
on the types and amounts of pesticides used at health care facilities
across the country. It confirms and elaborates on previous findings that
hazardous pesticides are commonly used in U.S. hospitals.
