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The environment is now becoming a punch line to very bad joke

Green Hospitals Vs Green Healing


By William McCreary, PhD.——--January 30, 2009

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As our society becomes more environmentally aware and green conscious, new areas of attention constantly come to the forefront of our awareness. We worry about switching light bulbs, proper compost able garbage bags, and aerated shower heads. I recently saw a pizza place proclaiming itself as a ‘green eatery’ because they were only going to give out two napkins per slice of pizza.

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The environment is now becoming a punch line to very bad joke. It is a marketing cash cow. We have worried and obsessed about making minor changes in the hopes that such will stem the tide of the degeneration believed to be associated with global warming. I know one light bulb at a time. Yet overlooked in this new green awareness is the degree of toxicity of our hospitals with their impact on the environment. Our government sponsored and regulated houses of health care are, in actuality, cesspools of toxicity. What is supposed to be ‘healing’ is killing us and our planet slowly but surely through its policies, procedures and politics.

Hospitals go greener to improve bottom line

Hospitals have quietly but long been known to be one of the top waste-producing industries. In 1998, the American Hospital Association and the Environmental Protection Agency agreed on goals to reduce the negative impact of health care facilities on the environment. The goals included nearly eliminating mercury-containing waste by 2005 and reducing hospital waste 50 percent by 2010. Those goals have not yet been met. Many hospitals, however, are becoming ‘green ‘for a completely different reason. The green movement in many hospitals has more to do with economics and increasing profit ( money green) than it does the negative impact on the environment (earth and natural green) .

Composting, recycling can cut their costs

By way of example, there is a hospital in America’s northwest that promotes it as being ‘green sensitive’ and ‘environmentally aware’. This medical "Green Team" has not focussed on pharmaceutical waste, but puts its efforts into a battery recycling program, increasing the number of recycling signs and bins in their facility and increasing the number of times their recycling is picked up. The hospital also saves their used and unused-but-opened medical supplies which are considered "contaminated" under U.S. regulations and then sends them to Third World countries where, because standards and regulations are lower (and the need is more desperate), they either run the risk of contaminating the underprivileged or their environment. At least the northwest corner of the US is greener. Other North West hospitals are admitting that it is their bottom line that is getting greener. The benefit to the environment seems to have become the means to an end, the method to making more money. One Medical Centre recently started a paper-shredding program that the hospital estimates will save $70,000 a year. Surgical instruments are now disinfected with a less hazardous chemical. They began buying 100 percent renewable energy which cost the hospital an extra $40,000 a year, but ‘was worth the added expense’, said hospital officials. In use for two years, their water reuse system has saved $140,000 in water and $79,000 in natural gas costs. Another area Medical Centre estimates saving more than $ 1 million since 2001 by recycling all paper, cardboard, metals, batteries, lamps and printer toner cartridges, and by eliminating blood pressure monitors (really, are they not kind of important?) They are also working on a ‘better way to dispose of expired medications and chemotherapy waste’. So is the motivation the saving of money or the protection of the environment. One member of the medical team in charge of the green program at one of these centres admits “They're business people and that's their first focus when it comes to the hospital”. While these steps and programs may save water, increase composting from food waste and decreased paper consumption, the real culprit in the hospital toxicity picture is the pharmaceutical, chemical, radioactive, toxic waste. Anyone who has provided basic health care services in their own home while providing hospice care for a dying family member quickly becomes aware of the amount of extra waste that accumulates from one patient. Such waste comes from a variety of sources including intravenous (IV) preparations; general compounding of medications; spills and breakage; partially used vials, syringes, and IVs; patients’ personal medications, wrappers, swabs, disinfectants, gowns, linens and on and on. Within a medical centre, the amount is magnified by hundreds and thousands. In a hospital pharmacy alone, one can easily find that they stock between 2,000 and 4,000 different items, each of which must be evaluated against state and federal hazardous waste regulations and be classified as either medical or hazardous waste, before being thrown away. Above and beyond what one would accumulate through home care, add to the list isolation room waste, chemotherapy, pathological waste, biological samples and surgery waste, surgical tubes and wiring, instruments of several sorts and so on. Hospital waste is considered dangerous because it may possess pathogenic agents and can cause undesirable effects on human health and the environment. In a survey carried out in several private hospitals, the results indicated that the waste generation rate is 4.45 kg/bed/day, which includes 71.44% domestic waste, 27.8% of infectious waste, and 0.76% of sharps. Yet there is no real end in sight because the dependence of our medical system rests within the use of pharmaceuticals and is consistently increasing. This is being driven by profit margins, new drug development and research, as well as an aging population trained to seek pharmaceutical means for disease and symptom. So what is a hospital to do??? Recently, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre one of the ‘best of the best hospitals’ according to public opinion and a recent study by US News, was fined nearly a quarter of a million dollars for improperly disposing of chemotherapy waste and other hazardous materials. Chemicals used for chemotherapy, along with dental fillings, which contain mercury, were improperly stored and labelled as regulations require. Christine Hickey, a hospital spokeswoman, said the chemotherapy chemicals were originally handled and labelled as regular medical waste and not as hazardous chemical waste, as regulations require. Similarly, the eastern seaboard branch of the EPA (NY, NJ, PR and US VIRGIN ISLES) has issued more than $1 million in fines regarding the disposal of hazardous waste materials based upon random inspections within their region. More than 40 compliance regulations were noted and served as the basis for these fines. However, the EPA has waived more than $9 million in fines for more than 1100 violations because they were ‘self reported from the hospitals’. It appears that there is more money for hospitals to make in self reporting their non compliance than in paying for change. The ‘green conversion’ of our hospitals saves in the tens of thousands, and cheating saves in the hundreds of thousands.

Toothless Enforcement by EPA

If fines by the body who is supposed to protect the general public from exposure to these very toxins are being waived, and there are no punishments, where is the incentive to change? If hospitals are in it for the money, but they save more money by cheating, again, the rich get richer and the sick get sicker. Until there are options that are truly green (environmentally, not economically) this cycle will continue. Health care is big business and profit is the bottom line. Sadly, the health and well being of the very patients they are supposed to be concerned with have become of secondary import. There are options and choices that will facilitate both the needs of the patient and the needs of the environment. Unfortunately, they are not so good for big business and their bottom line. But remember, if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got. William McCreary, PhD., Doctor of Natural Medicine Contributing Writer and Instructor (Energy Psychology) Randy McCreary has studied the interplay between the mind, spirit and body and its impact on both the development and reversal of disease conditions for the past 15 years. He has brought this vast information together into an effective format known as Neurotherapy. This self healing energetic psychological protocol deals with the optimization of the interplay between the Mind, Spirit and Body of the individual. Randy is also a highly sought after international speaker, author and educator on various topics within the field of health and wellness. He is renowned for his ability to powerfully impact his audiences through knowledge, humour, common sense and compassion.


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