CURRENT SITUATION OF HAZARDOUS MEDICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THAI BINH PROVINCE

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the current situation of medical hazardous waste generation, its components and management practices at provincial hospitals in Thai Binh. Direct survey and interview key informants were conducted in the total of 10 provincial hospitals. The results show that medical wastes occupied about 50% of total medical waste in province. The medical hazardous wastes from provincial hospital was recorded at 156,077 kg per year, occupied about 37.6% of the total medical hazardous wastes in Thai Binh province (414,959 kg per year). The medical wastes include solid medical waste (82.53%), hazardous medical waste (10.43%), recyclable waste (7.04%). The composition of the hazardous medical waste includes sharpness infectious waste accounting for 70%, other hazardous waste (2.43%) and the rest is amalgam dental wastes. For better management of environmental management in hospitals, all provincial hospotals established Infection Control Council to carry out planing and deploying medical waste management activities. However, the implementation of collection and classification processes and storage for hazardous medical wastes is still need more effort to meet standardization. Therefore, it is needed to improve storage for better environmental management.