Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

The Future Lifecyle of Women’s Health Care?

I am still in a euphoric state. As the incredible reality of our new President starts to settle in, I am realizing the proper space now exists for a chance for change. In the realm of women’s rights and healthcare, I am anxious to see the next steps that both Barack Obama , Joe Biden, along with the amazing Michelle Obama and Jill Biden take. It has been evident that this new administration will not let these issues fall though the cracks on their watch.

Now that we finally have someone’s attention, I think that it is important to wave the flag. As much as the topic of healthcare is on the minds and tongues of many, the excessive fiscal waste and inefficiencies evident in our system are not discussed openly.

I am going to start talking about it as much as I can. I truly believe the lack of supported advocacy for women’s health has a direct correlation to the state of our health care system.

There are approximately 6 million pregnancies every year throughout the United States, more than 19 million women are uninsured in this country and up until this point, sex education ( and quite frankly anatomy education) in this country has not been given the attention it deserves. We need to pursue a sustainable healthcare system which connects the dots and get women to speak up.

99% of births occur in hospitals. The average cost for a normal delivery held at a hospital is $6,378 and $10,638 +for a cesarean. Many hospitals are reporting cesarean rates of more than 40%. The estimated cost of a delivery and prenatal care at a birthing center is about $3,000 – $4,000. And unfortunately, insurance coverage for the choice to have one’s birth at a birthing center is not yet as easy to obtain as a hospital birth.

Of course the healthcare industries as yet are not going to fully disclose where that extra $3,000 to $7,000 + cost comes from. Could it be from the HIGHLY common use of pitocin, epidurals and other analgesics, the high cost surgery fees emergency and elective c-sections? I ask you to investigate for yourself if these all to common procedures are sustainable and healthy. Truly looking at the lifecycle of our health care system can reveal mind boggling revelations about the long term effects on our bodies and our children’s bodies and minds, not to mention our wallets.

Transparency needs to be revealed as to why these statistics are what they are and truths need to be shared.

IPCC Report

Well, IPCC’s (intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2nd report of four came out Friday (thats a pdf link…) It is by far the most comprehensive and heavily reviewed word on climate change. They don’t conduct experiments or get funded by companies… It is a collaborative effort put together in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N Environmental Program to combine and summarize the absolute best information that we have on climate change and what will happen in the coming years. There are three working groups that put together different aspects of the information; Group 1 – the relevant science Group 2 – the potential negative and positive effects climate change will have on nature and the economy and how to adapt Group 3 – options for change. In other words, this is the report to trump all other reports on climate change. And this year they’re releasing another assessment… If you missed it, the report on relevant science was released in February.

As for the newly released report – The future does not look so bright. The report given by hundreds of scientists says that there will be big problems in Asia, Sub-Africa and Small Islands, but that North America and Europe are not off the hook either. Increases in heat waves, loss of food production and water resources, more severe storms and erosion are all already happening. It is the poorest of the poor countries that will be getting hit the hardest, but also the poorest of the poor in affluent countries will also feel the extremely detrimental effects. Those who can’t afford health care, or water to be shipped to them. Those whose houses can’t stand up against extreme storms and can’t afford to pay a lot of money for groceries.

Some scientists have criticized the report saying that it was too watered down and not “striking” enough – so really, if what you’re about to read is the “watered down” version… imagine how catastrophic the …properly watered (?) version would be.

“We’re no longer arm waving with models,” said Dr. Parry, who identified areas most affected as the Arctic, Sub-Saharan Africa, small islands and Asia’s sprawling, crowded, flood-prone river deltas. “This is empirical information on the ground.”

The report said that climate patterns were shifting in ways that would bring benefits in some places — including more rainfall and longer growing seasons in high latitudes, opening Arctic seaways, and reduced deaths from cold — but significant human hardship and ecological losses in others. (NYT)

…

“These impacts have been known for many years, and are now seen with greater clarity in this report,” he said. “That clarity is perhaps the last warning we’re going to get before we actually have to report in the next IPCC review that we’re seeing the disaster unfolding.”

What sort of impacts? I’ll do a recap…

More »

Big Business Can Make a Big Difference!?

Actually, I am anti-capitalism, BUT I realize I live within a system that’s stuck with the concept, and I’m willing to work within it (which, in my experience has yielded more positive change than trying to overthrow it….or maybe I’m just getting old!) So I was pretty fascinated by the fact that 40 countries on the Fortune 500 list are buying renewable energy – and some in large amounts. As reported by CNN:

The EPA is calling for Fortune 500 companies to double their green power purchases to more than 5 billion kilowatt hours by the end of next year – or enough electricity to run more than 400,000 homes in the U.S. a year.

It’s interesting to see which companies are involved. I’ve copied the whole list here and you can see more after the jump. I like to see that some companies are already at 100% like Whole Foods (predictable) and Liz Claiborne and Apple HQs (not expected!). As the CNN article noted, glaringly absent from the list are Fortune-500 toppers Wal-Mart (yes, I can hate them again!) and Exxon-Mobil.

1. Wells Fargo & Company

Green Power Usage in Kilowatts: 550,000,000
Percent Total of Electricity: 42%
Organization Type: Banking, Financial Services
Provider of Energy: 3 Phases Energy
Type of Energy: Wind

2. Whole Foods Market

463,128,000
100%
Retail
Austin Energy, Community Energy, PNM, Renewable Choice Energy, Sky Energy
Biomass, Geothermal, Small-hydro, Solar, Wind

3. Johnson & Johnson

306,418,000
30%
Manufacturing
On-site Generation, 3 Phases Energy, PECO Energy, Sempra Energy, Sterling Planet
Biomass, Small-hydro, Solar, Wind

4. Starbucks

185,000,000
20%
Food, Food Services
3 Phases Energy
Wind

5. DuPont Company

180,000,000
4%
Chemical
3 Phases Energy
Biogas, Wind

6. Staples

121,404,000
24%
Retail
3 Phases Energy, Avista Utilities, Pacificorp, Portland General Electric, Tennessee Valley Authority
Biogas, Biomass, Solar, Wind

More »

Health Care Without Harm

I remember growing up along Long Island Sound and enjoying its beaches as a child. In the late eighties, when tons of medical waste ended up in the NY rivers and the sound, the beaches became hazardous, or what was perhaps even more disgusting, bio-hazardous. My friends and I heard awful stories of syringes and other medical waste littering the shore. I recently had to undergo a surgical procedure and wondered what was going to happen to the wrappers, tubes, and those hideous little rubber padded socks that all procedure rooms seem to require. Were those awful socks going to end up on some beach next to some poor unsuspecting kid’s sandcastle in Greenwich one day?

Health Care Without Harm is a global coalition of medical practitioners, hospitals, community groups, labor unions, and environmental health affiliates whose constituents include 443 organizations in 52 countries. The purpose of the coalition is to minimize pollution and thereby protect the health of practitioners, their patients and the surrounding environment, a.k.a. the earth.

In 1995 the EPA identified medical waste incinerators as the leading source of dioxin contamination in the environment. This report brought health care workers together to found the organization in 1996. Today, HCWH touts such successes as: eliminating mercury-based equipment completely in the US, promoting safe waste management and helping to close incinerators worldwide, initiating green building programs geared specifically toward hospitals, and helping to improve the food hospitals serve in order to support local agriculture and provide patients with nutritionally viable meals.

The HCWH has come under fire from conservatives who feel the organization is a front for the anti-capitalistic environmental movement that thwarts progress on any level. Perhaps right wingers are just fearing the loss of their extra special golf cart at the club, or their financial panderings from BigBiz. The religious right fear the organization’s manipulation of clergy for their detrimental eco-slander that supposedly does more harm than good by promoting less toxic practices. HCWH stays strong and continues to fight for the removal of PVCs and other dangerous materials and contaminants in medical systems. And then there are religious groups affiliated with the coalition who steer clear of the partisan politics.

Just as the Hippocratic Oath promises to, “first, do no harm,” HCWH is based on the premise that health care providers have a responsibility to eliminate practices that harm people and the environment. Together with our partners around the world, we share a vision of a health care industry that first does no harm, and instead promotes the health of people and the environment. To that end, we are working to implement ecologically sound and healthy alternatives to health care practices that pollute and contribute to disease.

I love good news. To find out what you can do to participate in this movement click here.