An official of the Environmental and Occupational Health Office (EOHO) of the Department of Health (DoH) recently expressed concern over the improper disposal of hospital wastes in the country and its impact on the health of the people, particularly the rise of respiratory diseases as well as skin diseases.
Dr. Desiree Narvaez, director of the EOHO, urged local governments to strictly monitor hospital wastes in their community during a convention on the link between the health and environment in Pasay City recently.
She said this would be instrumental in avoiding infections caused by improper disposal of toxic hospital wastes and other hazardous byproducts of hospital operations. Hospital wastes are generated as a result of diagnosis, treatment, immunization, research, and biological tests.
These are found in health centers, laboratories, research centers, blood banks, mortuaries, and other health facilities, including dental clinics and cosmetic clinics.
The role of DoH is limited to issuing licenses and many hospitals cease to practice waste segregation and proper waste disposal as soon as their licenses have already been issued.
Narvaez said that only 50 percent of government hospitals comply with the waste segregation policy.
She said the monitoring of hospital wastes should be played largely by local governments.
Narvaez said it is the task of the local governments to deploy health security inspectors and draft ordinances that penalize hospitals that do not follow the rule on waste segregation and disposal.
"Only 20 percent of hospital wastes are considered hazardous, which is the main concern for the monitoring," she said.
She said these health care wastes may cause respiratory and dermal diseases, fetal loss and cancer, and an estimated 28,200 kilograms of hospital wastes per day are generated from health offices. This is aside from the 7,756 kilograms of hospital wastes gathered from DoH hospitals. In Metro Manila alone, hospital wastes generated each day reach a total of 8,799 kilograms.
The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies hospital wastes as infectious, sharps, pathological, pharmaceuticals, and radioactive.
Infectious health care wastes include those from surgeries and autopsies while sharps include needles and syringes. Pathological wastes include tissues, organs, and body parts while pharmaceutical wastes are drugs and chemicals that have spilled or were outdated or contaminated.
Radioactive wastes are other hospital wastes contaminated with radioactive substances used for treating certain diseases such as goiter. Other wastes include those from the kitchen and from the offices in the hospitals.
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