Organic contaminants in hospital interiors

Hospitals are peculiar environments because of nature and features of toxicants affecting air as well as of population segments living and frequenting them (patients, visitors and daily services users, which often suffer lacks of immune defenses). Besides, activities carried out in hospitals need using special chemicals (e.g., radiopharmaceuticals, disease diagnostic products, anesthetics, and disinfectants). Thus, hospital workers and visitors meet with unknown amounts of chemicals, whose health impact remains insufficiently explored. Hospital interiors are affected by several emerging organic substances able to promote local irritations, asthma, allergies, DNA damages and endocrine disruption, which co-exist with common pollutants. In the frame of “PIRENEI” project, the pollution affecting interiors of a hospital premise was investigated by characterizing organic toxicants associated to settled dust and suspended particulate matter. Samples were solvent extracted, fractionated through column chromatography and analyzed through GC-MSD. Depositions were kept from flat surfaces of hall, bar, church and health services booking room; dust collection was operated at 1.5-2.0 m over the ground through wiping surfaces with pre-cleaned glass fiber strips. Suspended particles were withdrawn from air conditioning absolute filters in the infectious disease and pediatric surgery departments. PAHs and phthalates were measured as tracers of pollution, while psychotropic substances and surgical medical devices (parabens, bisphenol-A and nonylphenols) were investigated as emerging contaminants. The occurrence of pharmaceuticals was also explored. The results confirmed the presence of emerging contaminants in all hospital interiors. Since dusts and airborne particulates revealed distinct loads of contaminants, both types of substrates seem to be characterized in order to assess the ambient toxicity.