Chemical substances sources characterization in support of the health sector's sustainability and quality in Sonora, Mexico

The appropriate handling of chemical substances is an initiative in the environmental agenda of the North America region countries. Thanks to the efforts promoted by this initiative, Mexico knows the identity and dangerousness of the chemical substances that are in the market but still does not know what processes and products are involved in their use. To this day the efforts continue and are focused on identifying opportunities and challenges of chemical substances handling by productive sector. The Healthcare sector has been involved in the efforts carried out for the rational management of chemical substances, given their use during its activities. Furthermore, this sector has a dual responsibility given its involvement in the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses related to exposure to chemicals that are dangerous to health and environment, the later contradicting the principle of “first do no harm” in carrying out their profession. Given the aforementioned, the objective of this work was to characterize the supplies/goods/services so the chemical substances sources in use in the health sector can be identified, using a public hospital in Sonora, Mexico, as a study case. The results show that during the evaluated period entries of 774 data of supplies/goods/services were identified as chemical substances sources, of which only 664 data were used. The characterization of the latter ones allowing their classification in 76 different product lines (92% of which are patented products), including: medical gases, hemodialysis supplies, detergents, cleaners and antiseptics/disinfectants which stand out because of the volume in which they are used. Moreover, it was found that some lines of products in use contain active ingredients that are actually considered of priority interest, because of their toxic characteristics, by several international organizations, like mercury, ethylene oxide, formaldehyde, 2-butoxyethanol, 2-metoxyethanol, monoethanolamine, among others. This investigation shows, for the first time, an overview of the wide range of chemical substances sources, that is to say, products that are or contain chemical substances, used in a Mexican hospital, that pose a potential threat to the health and safety of workers, patients, visitors, and the environment. In the same way, the study results and methodology could be reproducible to all the establishments of healthcare in the state as the data obtained is linked to the law that controls the federal budget.