Disposal of medical waste in Ghana …a harmful practice to the public  

Dear Editor,

 Medical waste is a danger­ous waste generated by hospitals, clinics, health-care centres, laboratories and many others. This waste is usually generated during medical re­search, testing, diagnosis, immu­nisation or treatment of either human beings or animals. Some examples are culture dishes, glassware, bandages, gloves, discarded sharps like needles or scalpels, tissues and many more. Before the 1980, the regulations around medical waste were pret­ty loose.

Due to the hazardous nature of medical waste, it must be properly treated and disposed of to avoid possible contamination. Even though waste in general needs to be treated properly, medical waste needs extra at­tention and treatment. After all, medical waste placed in a domes­tic or council waste bins, must be disposed of properly.

Also, items that have been saturated and have more than trace amounts of body fluids need to be properly contained, treat­ed, and disposed of as they carry the potential risk of spreading diseases and viruses.

Incineration is done with a machine called incinerator. This is a commonly used method, howev­er, it generates harmful substanc­es such as dioxin, and others.

While incineration of medical waste generates harmful sub­stances such as dioxin and furan, steam sterilisation (autoclave) is environmental -friendly, mature and most economical non- in­cineration technology to process medical waste. The preferred method with the least impact on the environment is having it treated by autoclave. These devices use pressurised air and steam to sterilise the waste and can be used to treat 90 per cent of medical waste. It was found­ed in 1995 and it is the leading supplier of medical waste treat­ment in China. It is to provide clients a comprehensive medical waste treatment solution, one-stop supplying and high quality products with latest technology. The disposal capacity of a single autoclaves is from 1 -20 tonnes per day and free combination of autoclaves and full automatisa­tion of the plant is available.

With the placenta and other human “tissues”, the law says it must be incinerated at a high temperature or buried at a signif­icant depth and not to be placed in domestic or council waste bin.

Improving waste collection coverage of municipal areas, introducing mass community awareness raising and information campaigns will help to address negative community attitudes towards waste management.

Serwaa Marfo

Student, Ghana Institute of Journalism