Bio-Medical Waste Management Practices Among Health Care Professionals: A Case Study in District Faisalabad, Punjab Pakistan

Abstract

Biomedical waste (BMW) is produced during surgical, and medical treatment, vaccination, and diagnostic processes. Owing to its hazardous nature BMW must be carefully segregated, handle and discard. As the healthcare professionals are significant and influential part of any healthcare system so their practices for handling this waste are imperative. Purpose: This study was conducted in public sector hospitals of Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan to assess the Bio-medical waste management practices among healthcare professionals. Design/Methodology/Approach: In this cross-sectional quantitative study, 500 respondents was conveniently recruited in which 280 were MBBS doctors and 220 staff nurses serving in different departments of the hospital. A self-designed questionnaire comprises of different statements about practices of healthcare waste management was used for data collection. The collected data was analyzed through SPSS version 24. Findings: The researchers found that although “Hospital Waste Management Rule Pakistan 2005” exists and there are Bio Medical Waste Management (BMWM) committees in the hospitals, the healthcare waste management practices were not up to the mark. Moreover, no proper trainings of the healthcare professionals were conducted. Keywords: Bio Medical Waste Management, Healthcare

Healthcare Waste Management: An Overview

“…In one of the facilities, Ugbena [37] also discovered the incorporation of members from the local community into such committees, which buttresses the notion that people living around such facilities also need to be aware of the dangers of HCW. Malik et al [9] also observed the poor attention of the HCWM committees in the hospitals studied. A peculiar case observed in China revealed that there is a lack of coordination among the agencies involved in HCWM, which makes it difficult to supervise and monitor the level of compliance with the established policies [40].…”

“…A study in Ghana revealed that the majority of healthcare professionals believed that proper HCWM like the use of protective equipment, waste disinfection, and proper disposal had no positive influence in minimizing the risks of infections [20]. Similarly, some studies have shown the indiscriminate and inconsistent use of waste bins by hospital staff, which reflects a poor attitude towards proper HCWM [9,43]. Similarly, Macaulay and Odiase [42] observed a poor attitude among the sanitary staff responsible for collecting and storing HCW, which they attributed to their low level of education and poor training.…”

“…Healthcare waste (HCW) refers to any solid or liquid waste generated from the diagnosis, treatment, or immunization of human beings and animals or during research that can cause infections in humans [4]. Healthcare waste has been referred to by other names including medical waste [5,6,7], hospital waste [2,8] and biomedical waste [4,9].…”