Assessment of Health Care Waste Generation Rate and Evaluation of its Management System in Mizan Tepi University Teaching Hospital (MTUTH), Bench Maji Zone, South West Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Hospitals are established with the foremost rationale of protecting the community from any ailment. But during executing patient care activities, they create wastes which have the potential to cause harm to human beings and environment due to their unique characteristics. Objective: To assess health care waste generation rate and evaluate its management system in Mizan Tepi University Teaching Hospital, South West Ethiopia Method and Material: Facility based cross- sectional study was conducted in Mizan Tepi University teaching hospital from July 2015 to September 2016. Observational checklist was used to evaluate waste management system and weighting scale was used to quantify the generation rate of healthcare waste. Data was entered and analyzed using Epi Data V 3.1 and SPPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the health care waste generation rate. Kruskal Wallis test were used to test if there was significance difference between different departments with regard to total health care waste generation rate and types of waste. To assure the data quality calibration of weighting scales was made every morning. Data collectors were trained to use protective devises while collecting and measuring healthcare wastes. Result and Discussion: The mean generation rate of health care waste in this hospital was 0.164 kg/bed/day, of which 0.091 kg /bed/ day (55.5%) was general waste and the remaining 0.073 kg/bed/day (44.5%) was hazardous waste. There was statistically a significant difference to mean of total health care waste (χ2 = 44.604, p value = 0.001), general waste (χ2=41.815, p-value=0.001) and hazardous waste generated (χ2=44.324, p-value=0.000) between different wards. Waste segregation was not practiced at source of generation. Conclusion and Recommendation: It is known that waste segregation at source of generation is crucial to improve waste management practices as well to decrease its volume. However, in this study area onsite segregation was not practiced appropriately. Also status of health care waste management practice with regard to storage, collection, treatment and disposal were not coherent with the WHO guideline. Therefore, the hospital management should enforce all groups for the proper application of the principle of waste management in a way safe to environment and public. Keywords: Health Care Waste; Waste Segregation; Waste Generation; Hospital