Mercury danger continues at hospital

By Paul Jones

BRISBANE -- Despite promises from Royal Brisbane Hospital, mercury spillage dangers there continue, staff have told Green Left Weekly.

In July the Division of Workplace Heath and Safety withdrew a legally binding notice of improvement requiring RBH to ensure a safe environment after the hospital promised a clean-up policy, staff education videos, a spill unit, clean-up of existing spills and digital thermometers.

But staff say that they have seen no policy instructing them to report spills and no video, they have not seen any digital equipment, and sphygmomanometers continue to leak. Staff requesting material safety data sheets for spilled mercury have been told to “mind their manners” or incur the wrath of “big sister”.

Known as “sphygmos” by health professionals, blood pressure recording machines are 70 grams of a classified hazardous substance in an unsealed container, which have never conformed to the labelling requirements of the Workplace Health and Safety Regulations 1989, or the Australian Manufacturing standard 3655.

Spillage from these machines caused a level of 85 micrograms/cubic metre in the breathing zone of a patient in July -- 1.7 times the legal limit -- and even when the improvement notice had been issued, the spill was left for weeks.

Bruce Lawrence, president of the Bethlehem Apparatus Company, in a series of articles in the Engineering and Mining Journal, describes a 50% reduced demand for mercury in the West, caused by closure of chlor-alkali plants which use massive mercury electrodes, resulting in large amounts of recycled mercury being available. Pressure is on Third World countries to take up the slack in demand.

Our hospitals are like Third World countries, with more than one “sphygmo” per bed in some wards, and 750 thermometers replaced per month at RBH.

Nurses, like “sphygmo” repair technicians, are vulnerable to chronic mercury poisoning, but the Queensland Nurses Union, lost in a femocratic process, is silent on the issue. Instead, it focuses on matters such as the colour of the new nurses' uniforms.

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page.
For further details regarding subscriptions and
correspondence please contact glw@greenleft.org.au

Tools

• Bookmark This Page
• Print This Page