- Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale was an early environmental activist. She saw the importance of creating a safe and healthy environment for faster healing. She advocated for cleanliness in hospitals, fresh air, fresh sheets, and pure water.
Today’s nurses develop their care from this idea. It is the whole person, in the context of our environment, who exhibits disease and heals through disease. We interact with our environment, and insults to our environment matter. Toxins accumulate in our bodies, causing problems. When we do not get enough sunlight, we suffer. If our water and air are not clean, we damage our health.
This holistic perspective puts nurses in a natural position to be champions for a healthy environment and, in fact, many inspiring nurses have committed their lives to improving our environment.
Registered nurse Charlotte Brody has been a committed activist for many years. In 1995, when she learned from an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report that health care institutions were big contributors to dioxins in air pollution and mercury in our waste stream, she got busy. She and several others came together to form Healthcare Without Harm, an organization with the mission of making health care more ecologically sustainable.
The group’s work has been instrumental in helping others to lead change in health care in this regard. When Healthcare Without Harm was started, there were more than 5,000 medical waste incinerators, which were identified as the primary health care source of these pollutants in the air. Today there are about 100.
She says, “I just want to be part of a global community that keeps learning how to keep making bigger, smarter transformational change.”
Apparently, she has learned to do just that.
Registered nurse Barbara Sattler, Ph.D., is director of the Environmental Health Center at the University of Maryland, which offers the only environmental health nursing graduate degree in the nation.
Sattler has been a tireless activist for environmental health for both children and adults. She has helped develop tools for environmental health assessment, worked on campaigns for safer health and beauty products, lobbied for better chemical policies in our nation. The effects of her work have been far reaching.
Many other nurses around the country and world have worked with commitment for improving environmental standards and decreasing environmental impacts. Perhaps they are motivated by what draws them to nursing - a deep care for others and their world, and a practical can-do attitude when it comes to solving problems.
Some are now working on reducing the environmental impacts of health care itself. There is more attention on reducing toxins such as dioxins and mercury, reducing carbon footprints through energy-efficient building design, and reducing of waste through recycling and changing processes so less is produced in the first place.
Hospitals for a Healthy Environment is a nonprofit organization that helps hospitals and health care institutions reduce their environmental impacts. The group helps wade through the complex regulation of medical waste disposal, hazardous waste handling, how to save energy while running a 24/7 operation, how to decrease waste while maintaining sterility and other challenges.
Caring about health also means caring about the environment in which we all live and depend.
Happy Earth Day!
Beth Schenk is a registered nurse at St. Patrick Hospital and Health Sciences Center. Questions for our clinicians? Please send them to info@saintpatrick.org.
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