Global Citizen: A Pandemic Killed My Great-Grandfather. Here’s What We Need to Avoid Another.
Mike Paddock, chief engineer at Engineers Without Borders USA, discusses WASH issues at medical facilities around the world. The author writes, “One hundred years ago, the Spanish flu pandemic infected one-third of the planet’s population and killed at least 50 million people, including my great-grandfather. It was fueled by health care facilities with inadequate WASH. Today, our best defense against a pandemic just might be that health care facility in Africa, Asia, or Latin America with adequate WASH to contain infectious disease. … We all need to push local and global leaders to get safe and sustainable water, toilets, and hygiene into health care facilities everywhere. And we need to make sure that what comes out of those facilities has a safe place to go, too” (9/17).

WASH in Health Care Facilities: Risk Remains on the Inaugural U.N. Patient Safety Day
Susan Davis, a WASH and public health advocate, discusses WASH conditions at facilities where women give birth and shares observations from a visit to a particular facility. Davis writes, “When 17 million women give birth in healthcare facilities without adequate water, soap, and toilets every year, that’s a colossal global health problem. … [W]ithout a strong supporting environment — training, regulations, money for maintenance, monitoring — WASH falls apart, and health suffers” (9/17).