HEALTH FACILITY MEDICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT

Definition:

Medical waste is any kind of waste that contains infectious material that has the potential of causing illness. This definition includes waste generated by healthcare facilities like hospitals, clinics, maternity homes, nursing homes, medical laboratories, and other diagnostics centers.

Medical waste can contain body fluids like blood, nasal secretion, vomitus or other contaminants generated during a medical procedure, testing, diagnosis, immunization, or treatment of human beings. Some examples are culture dishes, glassware, bandages, gloves, discarded sharps like needles or scalpels, swabs, and tissue.

The term “medical waste” can cover a wide variety of different byproducts of the healthcare industry. The broadest definition can include office paper and hospital sweeping waste. The list below displays the most common waste categories

• Sharps: This kind of waste includes anything that can pierce the skin, including needles, scalpels, lancets, broken glass, razors, ampules, staples, wires, and
• Infectious Waste: Anything infectious or potentially infectious goes in this category, including swabs, tissues, excreta, equipment, and lab
• Radioactive: This kind of waste generally means unused radiotherapy liquid or lab research It can also consist of any glassware or other supplies contaminated with this liquid.
• Pathological: Human fluids, tissue, blood, body parts, bodily fluids, and contaminated animal carcasses come under this waste These are sometimes referred to as highly infectious waste.
• Pharmaceuticals: This group includes all unused, expired, and/or contaminated vaccines and It also encompasses antibiotics, injectables, and pills.
• Chemical: These are disinfectants, solvents used for laboratory purposes, batteries, and heavy metals from medical equipment such as mercury from broken
• Genotoxic Waste: This is a highly hazardous form of medical waste that’s either carcinogenic, teratogenic, or It can include cytotoxic drugs intended for use in cancer treatment.
• General Non-Regulated Medical Waste: Also called non-hazardous waste, this type doesn’t pose any particular chemical, biological, physical, or radioactive This category includes papers, plastics, rubbers e.t.c not in contact with any form of body fluids or blood.

Management:

1. Constitute an infection control team.
2. Waste management procedures should be
3. The facility must ensure compliance with standard healthcare waste management guidelines and adopt practices that do Where possible, there should be laid down policy and guidelines on medical waste management, of which all personnel should know and practice adequately.

To minimize the risk of infection; All registered health facilities are to ensure:

• Safe management and disposal of waste, including sharps at the point of
• Registration with Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) is compulsory (both domestic and medical).
• Use of appropriate waste bins and bin liners in all sections of the
• Availability of an appropriate final waste collection point on-site.

The practice of appropriate medical waste management should include adequate medical waste segregation with the use of swing or pedal dustbins lined with appropriate black, yellow, red liners (bags) and safety box for sharps at the point of generation. These are further illustrated below:

Separate the waste by type: Waste should be separated out into the different categories, including sharps, pharmaceutical, chemical, pathological, and non-hazardous.

• • Black bag: for general non- hazardous waste such as paper, plastics, garbage e.t.c.
  • Yellow biohazard bag: for infectious hazardous waste such as syringes, empty IVs, wipes, swabs, gloves t.c.
  • Red biohazard bag:  for pathological highly infectious waste such as blood product, IV tubing, sample bottles, body parts e.t.c.
  • Brown biohazard bag: for expired pharmaceuticals and
  • Radiological bio-hazard bag: for radioactive waste g. X-ray films
  • Safety-box: for used needles and

Final point of collection: Waste collected in various colour coded containers or bags, awaiting final disposal by LAWMA should be appropriately stored at a designated final collection point, adequately protected or screened from rodents and