Health Care Without Harm aims to change environmental policies and practices currently employed by health-care institutions both domestically and abroad. These changes include improving practices of medical waste disposal, product purchasing and recycling, and phasing out polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics and mercury. HCWH promotes comprehensive pollution-prevention practices; supports the development and use of environmentally safe products and technologies; and educates health-care institutions, providers, workers, and consumers about their impact on public health and the environment. The campaign, which was founded in 1998 by 23 organizations, today numbers 416 in more than 40 countries.

What makes the campaign such a success is the diversity of interests and groups that have come to the table to solve these issues. Some hospitals led the way in changing their behavior, demonstrating to the rest of the industry that these changes are feasible. Physicians, nurses, patient advocacy organizations, religious groups and labor unions have all participated and, together with hospital administrators, are working to pressure large medical-equipment suppliers into providing alternatives.

Another key to the coalition's success has been its focus on a national and global strategy to eliminate harmful chemicals. The V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation's support of HCWH has been instrumental in the campaign's efforts to make health-care providers, medical-supply purchasers and medical-product manufacturers aware of the public health and environmental consequences of current medical practice.

Although HCWH is a global coalition of organizations with an international perspective and strategy, a large portion of the work it does is carried out at the local level in cities and towns around the world. These myriad local efforts from closing down medical-waste incinerators to altering purchasing patterns at small hospitals are in service to one of HCWH's primary long-term goals: educating and empowering health professionals to become advocates for environmental health improvements in society at large.

For more information visit: www.noharm.org