Assessment of Medical Waste Management in Private Hospitals

Abstract

Recent happening globally especially in the developing country such as Nigeria has shown that there is need to conduct a survey on medical waste management due to direct or indirect adverse effect on the environment and human health. The medical waste management in private hospitals in Lagos State was assessed. Information on hospitals was collected from Lagos State Ministry of Health, Aluasa. Nine hospitals were visited and questionnaires and schedules were administered on the current status of medical waste management such as hospital generation information, waste amount, separation, collection, temporary storage and training.Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that the total medical wastes were 207.16 Kg/day. Of the total medical wastes produced in studied area in one day, 119.07 Kg consisted of hazardous-infectious wastes, 85.91 Kg municipal wastes and 2.18 Kg sharp wastes. The average generation rate of total medical waste was 1.14 ± 0.2 Kg/bed-day. However, these rates were 0.72 ± 0.01 Kg/bed-day, 0.47 ± 0.01 Kg/bed-day and 0.01 ± 0.002 Kg/bed-day for hazardous-infectious, municipal and sharp wastes respectively. The percentages of hazardous-infectious wastes, municipal wastes and sharp wastes were 60.00%, 39.10% and 0.83% respectively. The hospitals waste management was evaluated poor in terms of separation, collection, transportation, temporary storage and training aspects and good in the treatment aspect.