Scribd
Upload
9 views2 pages

00 Assignment Heal TH Waste Man

Improper waste management in healthcare settings poses significant risks to public health and the environment, leading to infections and contamination. Effective waste management practices are crucial for protecting healthcare workers, patients, and communities from hazardous waste and its harmful effects. Implementing proper strategies and awareness can enhance safety and mitigate the negative impacts of healthcare waste.

Uploaded by

Vohn Archie Edjan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
9 views2 pages

00 Assignment Heal TH Waste Man

Improper waste management in healthcare settings poses significant risks to public health and the environment, leading to infections and contamination. Effective waste management practices are crucial for protecting healthcare workers, patients, and communities from hazardous waste and its harmful effects. Implementing proper strategies and awareness can enhance safety and mitigate the negative impacts of healthcare waste.

Uploaded by

Vohn Archie Edjan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

0

Importance of Proper Waste Management in the Health Care Settings


Healthcare wastes come second to radiation waste as one of the most dangerous
pollutants on the planet (Arab et al., 2018). WHO (2018) claims that health-care waste
encompasses everything from spent needles and syringes—infectious waste such as blood,
pathological waste such as human tissues, sharps waste such as syringes, chemical wastes,
pharmaceutical waste such as vaccines, cytotoxic waste, radioactive waste, and non-hazardous
or general waste—and they are mostly dangerous. Poor waste management can put health
care employees, waste handlers, patients, and the public at danger of illness, harmful effects,
and injuries, as well as contaminating the environment. It is critical that all medical waste items
be separated at the point of creation, processed properly, and disposed of securely.
Specifically, there have been adverse cases to human health and environment brought
by the improper waste management of these healthcare wastes from the healthcare settings
(Bdour et al., 2007). Pepin et al. (2014) estimates that contaminated and improperly disposed
syringes has caused 21 million hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections, two million hepatitis C virus
infections and 260000 HIV infections worldwide. Scavenging and manual sorting of this waste
further aggravates the problem. In Russia, six children caught a smallpox virus after playing
expired vaccine ampules at a garbage dump. Serious accidents from radioactive waste from a
radiotherapy treatment caused the death of four people and burned 28 people in Brazil from
the last decade (Nwachukwu et al., 2013). Incineration of medical wastes has been associated
with the release of toxic and carcinogenic dioxins, furans, and heavy metals to the
environment. These toxins can harm whole food chains and ecosystems and can concentrate on
the top consumers—the humans. Contamination of water supply can be disastrous in the
community, particularly, the lack of sewage treatment and proper sterilization procedures
caused cholera epidemics in Africa. Aside from the potentially infectious and pathogenic nature
of medical wastes in disposal areas, multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria also rise from the
untreated healthcare liquid waste to the sewage systems (Pradhan & Mishra, 2010). In some
countries, there is also a limited segregation of hazardous and medical wastes and usually
mixed with non-infectious waste—causing exposure to the health of people living near or
working with wastes (Bdour, 2007).
With these in mind, there is a sense of greater importance and urgency in implementing
proper waste management in health care settings as it can prevent all the concerning problems
reported. Furthermore, at its most basic level, proper hospital/laboratory waste management
improves staff and patient safety by lowering the risk of a sharps injury, expenses of direct and
indirect care, pathogen exposure, and hospital-acquired illnesses (Wafula, 2019). For the
community and environment, proper waste management in healthcare settings can bring
protection to the safety and security of the public health and balance of the ecosystem.
Instigating the key elements—overseeing strategies, addressing responsibilities, promoting
mitigation, awareness, compliance, & treatment—of healthcare waste management system can
ensure this (WHO, 2015).
REFERENCES:
Arab, M., Baghbani, R. A., Tajvar, M., Pourreza, A., Tajvar, M., Omrani, G., & Mahmoudi, M.
(2008). Report: The assessment of hospital waste management: a case study in
Tehran. Waste management & research, 26(3), 304-308.
Bdour, A., Altrabsheh, B., Hadadin, N., & Al-Shareif, M. (2007). Assessment of medical wastes
management practice: a case study of the northern part of Jordan. Waste management,
27(6), 746-759.
Nwachukwu, N. C., Orji, F. A., & Ugbogu, O. C. (2013). Health care waste management–public
health benefits, and the need for effective environmental regulatory surveillance in
federal Republic of Nigeria. Current topics in public health, 2, 149-178.
Pepin, J., Abou Chakra, C. N., Pepin, E., Nault, V., & Valiquette, L. (2014). Evolution of the global
burden of viral infections from unsafe medical injections, 2000–2010. PloS one, 9(6),
e99677.
Pradhan, B., & Mishra, S. K. (2010). Multiple drug resistance in bacterial isolates from liquid
wastes generated in central hospitals of Nepal. Kathmandu University Medical
Journal, 8(1), 40-44.
Wafula, S. T., Musiime, J., & Oporia, F. (2019). Health care waste management among health
workers and associated factors in primary health care facilities in Kampala City, Uganda:
a cross-sectional study. BMC public health, 19(1), 1-10.
World Health Organization. (2015). Water, sanitation and hygiene in health care facilities: status
in low- and middle-income countries and way forward.
World Health Organization. (2018). Health-Care Waste. World Health Organization News Room.
Retrieved December 6, 2021, from
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/health-care-waste.

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy