groundWork’s Environmental Health campaign is involved in a wide range of activities
October 3, 2012, groundWork By Rico Euripidou
Health workers rarely understand the cocktail of industrial pollution that patients might be affected by or the reality that much of their illness is potentially caused by their place of work and where they live. When undergoing an examination it is very seldom – if ever – that pertinent questions, such as where do you live, what factory or industry do you live next to that could be polluting your environment and your health, are asked of them.
This was starkly illustrated in a recent community meeting held in south Durban where people are trying to understand why their air is regularly polluted by toxic chemicals. People are asking that health workers start recognizing pollution in their diagnoses. groundWork has, therefore, for some time now endeavored to work with health practitioners to get them to understand chemical exposure in their patients as possibly arising from the work environment. We have to ask these questions from an environmental justice perspective.
We have had an incredibly busy start to 2012 in our efforts to train health care and environmental health workers in the concept of environmental justice relative to the health care community. The focus of this campaign began with mercury and health care waste and has subsequently broadened into environmental health.
The various priority issues that we have covered include the public health impacts of climate change, the implications of the new health care risk waste regulations and Waste Act for health care workers and the global movement towards mercury-free health care.
Overall, 289 clinical health care and environmental health workers have been trained over five training days and over forty occupational health and safety nurses participated in a public health and climate change seminar. In hospitals and clinics, the focus campaign for the elimination of mercury works in all spheres of health care: from local clinics and hospitals, through to local, provincial and national governments, the African region and the international treaty process. Similarly, air quality impacts on health and waste are also integral to environmental health while the implications of climate change cannot be overstated.
The EH training campaign therefore works in tandem with the other campaigns to contribute to people’s understanding of the broader environmental and health issues, linking health care workers to directly affected communities.