Hospital changes attitude on mercury

By Paul Jones BRISBANE — Staff at Royal Brisbane Hospital report that old mercurial thermometers were replaced last week in many wards with digital equipment. This is the first real change in the management's attitude since mercury spillage and exposure became an issue in mid-1994. RBH was served with two improvement notices in July 1994 by the Division of Workplace Health and Safety, which received a written report detailing uncontrolled mercury spillage from thermometers and sphygmomanometers (blood pressure recording machines) from a health and safety representative working at the hospital. Under the influence of the Queensland Nurses Union, the improvement notices were withdrawn within a week. The issue has not gone away, however, and ex-health minister Peter Beattie was obliged to detail mercury hazard strategies and funding in parliament after a question from opposition health spokesperson in November 1995. Within days of the question, RBH nurse managers circulated a memo announcing that $35,000 would be spent on tympanic membrane thermometers, which take temperatures in 2 seconds by reading the intensity of infrared rays in the ear canal. The memo also claimed the hospital executive had agreed to phase out all mercury instruments, but no time frame was given for this claim and no directive was given to remove the old thermometers. No across the state guidelines apply to mercury spillage. In Japan, since the late 1950s, local authorities have systematically monitored and controlled mercury content of hospital waste water into the sewerage system, but Brisbane City Council has yet to take action beyond a "get tough on polluters" trade waste policy which exempts hospitals. Nurses come into direct skin contact with mercury and mercury laden dust every time they take blood pressures, because sphygmomanometers continually leak small droplets of mercury. Completely unaware of the exposure, nurses may wear gold hand jewellery, a known mercury attractant, further increasing exposure. Resistance by the medical establishment to replacing mercury-based equipment in hospitals is international. A recent study published in the environmental science journal Water, Air, and Soil Pollution, shows a similar situation overseas. Of 28 Quebec hospitals surveyed, 45% still used mercurial thermometers, 80% still used mercurial sphygmomanometers, and 35% had no reporting or spill procedures.