Healthcare waste management
General
In the process of healthcare, waste is generated. It usually includes sharps, human tissues or body parts and other infectious materials. The amount of laboratory wastes in hospitals is being generated due to the use of more disposable products (Baveja et al 2000). The waste produced in the course of healthcare activities carries a high potential for infection and injury than any other waste. The work environment can be polluted, and consequently healthcare personnel and patients can be impacted (MOHSW 2006)
Characteristics of healthcare waste
Healthcare waste management includes all activities involved in waste generation, segregation, transportation, storage, treatment and disposal of all types of waste
…show more content…
The most appropriate way of identifying health care waste is by sorting the waste in colour coded plastic bags or containers (Patil and Shekdar 2007). Sahar Mohamed Soliman et al state that 60% of surgical, medical and laboratory department store biomedical waste inside utility rooms, followed by 40% of intensive care units. It is concluded that inadequate inefficient segregation of healthcare waste contribute to increased risks of staff, patients, and the community to biomedical hazards ( Sahar Mohamed Soliman et al …show more content…
Healthcare workers, patients and communities at large remain highly exposed to healthcare waste. Contaminated needles/ syringes and other supplies are unsafely disposed off in a number of countries and this pose a risk to healthcare workers and to the public at large. More than 16 billion injections are administered word wide. Of these, 95% are curative in nature, and 5% are administered in immunization setting. It is estimated that 50% of infections given in developing countries are unsafe, and these account for 33% of new hepatitis B virus, 43% of hepatitis C infections and 2.5% of new HIV infections (Path,