Ironically, while hospitals and health care facilities save lives every day, sometimes the byproduct is environmental pollution that is a dangerous health risk to health care workers, patients and the community at large.

Certain drugs, medical equipment, and cleaning supplies can have unintended effects on people and the environment.  Nurses and other health care workers are at particular risk due to their regular exposure to powerful drugs, sterilizing compounds, and unsafe patient wastes.  For example:

• Commonly-used sterilants, such as glutaraldehyde, ethylene oxide, and formaldehyde can cause occupational asthma.
• Several studies have found measurable concentrations of anti-neoplastic drugs in nurses’ urine. 
• Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), commonly found in IV bags and tubing, produces dioxins during manufacturing and when incinerated for disposal.  Dioxin exposure is associated with cancer, behavioral problems and endocrine disruption. 
• Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), an additive that leaches out of PVC products, is a reproductive and developmental toxin and may be a risk to some vulnerable infant and adult patients.

What Can Union Nurses Do?

As frontline health care providers, nurses are in a unique position to identify hazards in the workplace and to develop strategies to reduce them.  Union contracts give nurses a tool to bargain with management over environmental health conditions and make positive changes, such as finding PVC-free products and reducing the use of products like latex and glutaraldehyde.

UAN recently led a collaboration to develop model contract language to help union nurses reduce environmental hazards in their workplaces.  Working with health and safety activist nurses from several unions and the Environmental Health Education Center at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, UAN developed Environmental Health: Tools for UAN Nurses through a grant from Health Care Without Harm, a non-profit campaign working toward a more ecologically safe health care industry. 

Read Environmental Health: Tools for UAN Nurses

• Download the cover page and summary.
• Down load the full text.

View more links on environmental health resources