Study of secondary level healthcare waste composition and amount

Abstract

Background: According to the World Health Organization, 75-90% of the total waste is generated by the healthcare facilities is general waste whereas 10-25% is medical waste. In addition, the total amount of waste generated by the healthcare facilities is 2-4 kg/bed/day and the well-defined, infectious medical waste is 0.2-0.4 kg/bed/day. Aim: Our goal is to determine the composition and amount of waste from hospitals. Materials and Methods: We used cross-sectional study design to determine the composition and quantity of healthcare waste from facilities and descriptive study design was used to analyze the waste data collected and received by the waste disposal facility. Results: The total amount of waste per day is about 915.35 kg, which is 690.26 kg (75.4%) of it belongs to general waste whereas 225 kg (24.6%) of it belongs to medical waste, respectively. The total amount of waste per day inpatient is 0.813 kg/bed/day, medical waste is 0.223 kg/bed/day and general waste is 0.587 kg/bed/day. The average amount of waste per day per outpatient is 0.07kg, as for medical waste is around 0.023 kg and general waste is around 0.04 kg, respectively. About 25.1% total waste generated by the medical waste is in the reception, emergency and 37.7% in the laboratory proportionally. Discussion: According to our research 75.4% of the total waste of health care organizations is ordinary waste and 24.6% is hazardous waste, which is 11.2% higherthan the results of Enkhtsetseg Sh (2005) survey. The amount of hazardous waste per patient was approximately 6 times higher than the results of the above study (0.036 kg/bed/day) to 0.223 kg/ bed/day, which is similar to the results of similar studies in the other countries. Conclusion: There is no statistically significant difference (0.21) between the central and peripheral districts in terms of location of the amount of solid waste in secondary health facilities. Hazardous waste is more than 25% of the WHO recommended amount for Baga-Khangai and Baganuur district general hospitals, Bayangol, Nalaikh and Sukhbaatar district health centers.