Bio-medical waste wreaks havoc

On an average a hospital bed generates 1kg of waste per day in India. Out of which this 10-15 per cent are infectious, 5 per cent are hazardous and rest is general waste. Every day, country’s numerous hospitals and medical facilities churn out millions of tonnes of waste. An alarming proportion of it lies in the open, like festering sores on civilization’s body, as breeding grounds of lethal virulence and epidemics.

Bio-Medical Waste (BMW) is considered threat because its exposure to health-care waste can result in disease or injury. The hazardous nature of health-care waste may be due to one or more of the following characteristics:
· it contains infectious agents;
· it contains toxic, genotoxic or hazardous chemicals or pharmaceuticals;
· it can have radioactive waste
· it contains sharps which are a very potent way of transmitting infection

All individuals exposed to hazardous health-care waste are potentially at risk, including those within health-care establishments and those outside. Outsiders can be exposed to it while either handling such waste or as a consequence of careless management. BMW affects all of us in some way or the other, whether it is the healthcare worker, community, municipal and hospital workers, ragpickers or the patients.

BMW is not only linked with the spread of infectious agents like, Human Immuno deficiency Virus (HIV) and HBV, but also with indirect problems like endocrine disruption, cancers, reproductive disorders, immune suppression, nervous disorders etc.

Equipments and chemicals used in hospitals, like mercury-containing instruments, radioactive isotopes, glutaraldehyde, cytotoxic drugs etc. also pose a big threat if they are not disposed off properly. The most dangerous of all is the sharps waste, which is capable of transmitting infections.

Occupational hazards to the healthcare workers have so far been ignored in our country; these can be reduced to a great extent by management of healthcare waste. Ragpickers and other people associated with medical waste collection will also benefit if steps are taken to evolve a waste disposal mechanism.

If the entire hospital waste is mixed the 20 percent of infectious waste, the entire waste is rendered 100 percent infectious. The quantities become unmanageable and the hospital prefer to throw them in municipal bins. If hospitals fail to treat quantities of hospital waste, a large chunk of this waste reaches municipal dumps where it increases the great danger of spread of infection to the community.