CEHA organized a regional workshop on environmental health in health care facilities from 12 to 14 June 2012. The objectives of the workshop were to:
- discuss current environmental health problems/challenges
- Identify essential environmental health temporary measures to protect health in health care settings
- prioritize environmental health and related occupational health issues and their implementation in the immediate, short, medium and long term.
The workshop was attended by participants from patient safety, occupational health, infection control and environmental health programmes in the Region, who exchanged experiences and discussed suggested elements for development of a regional strategic framework to provide technical support to countries of the Region in achieving desired levels of environmental health in health care settings.
Many health care facilities in the Region lack the resources, skills or institutional structure to support acceptable levels of environmental health. The workshop provided an opportunity to prioritize environmental health issues and to move forward within a phased approach in order that the most urgent problems can be identified and addressed immediately.