Wednesday, July 04, 2007 Nalzaro: Hospital waste By Bobby Nalzaro Saksi
WHILE health officials are urging the public to be active in cleanliness drives and to show concern for the environment, they themselves are remiss in their duty of monitoring how hospitals dispose medical waste.
Saturday's episode of GMA 7's “Imbestigador” hosted by veteran broadcaster Mike Enriquez exposed the illegal and questionable manner local hospitals, including the Cebu City Medical Center, dispose waste.
Some hospitals here throw medical waste like they were ordinary trash at the Inayawan sanitary landfill. People responsible for this should be shot by a firing squad.
Hospital and health officials are supposed to safeguard the health of the community. But waste produced by hospitals, if disposed improperly, can pose an even greater threat to the people.
According to a health fact sheet, hospital waste management means managing waste produced by hospitals using techniques that will help check the spread of diseases.
But waste management is a major problem in most countries. In recent years, medical waste disposal has posed even more difficulties with the appearance of disposable needles, syringes and other similar items.
Hospital wastes are categorized according to weight, density and constituents.
The World Health Organization has classified medical waste into different categories like the following:
—Infectious materials containing pathogens in sufficient concentrations or qualities that, if exposed, can cause diseases. Examples are wastes from surgery and autopsies on patients with infectious diseases.
—Sharps like disposable needles, syringes, saw, blades, broken glasses, nails or any other item that could cause a cut. —Pathological like tissues, organs, body parts, human flesh, fetuses, blood and body fluids.
—Pharmaceuticals like drugs and chemicals that are returned from wards, spilled, outdated, contaminated, or are no longer required.
—Radioactive like solids, liquids and gaseous waste contaminated with radioactive substances used in diagnosis and treatment of diseases like toxic goiter.
—Other waste from the office, kitchens, rooms, including bed linens, utensils, papers, etc.
Hospital wastes usually disposed in Inayawan are needles and syringes. We don't know if these items are already in the hands of drug users after scavengers sold these to them.
Ang grabe kay ang ubang pinutol nga parte sa lawas sa tawo dili ilubong, ipaanod lang sa sapa sa B. Rodriguez. Taga-City Health Department ug DOH, pagmata mo uy.
