TICKING TIME BOMB
Hospital stuck with medical and nonmedical waste No plans to fix incinerator
Piles of medical and nonmedical waste at Deborah Retief Memorial Hospital (DRMH) in Mochudi are increasingly becoming not only an eyesore but a threat to the health of staff, patients, disposal workers, residents as well as animals that populate the hilly surroundings.
The hospital incinerator that is used to burn both infectious medical waste and non-infectious waste is not working and has not been for a while.
According to Christopher Nyanga, the Ministry of Health and Wellness spokesperson, there are currently no plans to fix the incinerator given the cost to do so and persistent breakdowns that it is prone to.
Instead, the Kgatleng District Council has been engaged to collect domestic waste while private companies will continue to collect clinical waste.
Nyanga says the hospital incinerator started having problems in 2018, only doing incomplete combustion due to a break on its main walls. A decision was then taken in 2019 to stop using it altogether.
“The absence of an incinerator inevitably brings challenges of waste management in the hospital”, Nyanga admits. According to Nyanga, the ministry engaged a private company to collect clinical waste every fortnight at the hospital but unfortunately, the company did not take up the job saying they had underpriced.
Nyanga told The Midweek Sun that another process has since been started to procure services of another company to dispose clinical waste at DRMH. The process is nearing completion and the new company will be on site by end of June 2021.
In the meantime, clinical waste is piling up in the hospital premises. While awaiting the finalisation of a long-term contract for waste management at the hospital, some private companies are engaged on a short-term basis, to remove waste that the hospital generates. Nyanga explains that under normal circumstances, depending on the amount of waste produced, it can be disposed off daily or weekly for incineration.
“For most parts, it was disposed of fortnightly at DRMH, however, the presence of an incinerator allows for such waste to be incinerated any time as may be necessary”. Rates of payment for engaged companies differ depending on the amount collected since prices are determined per kilograms. The costs are also not fixed. One kilogram normally costs in the range of P20 to P30 per kg. Environmental Health Experts say while most of some of the hospital waste is not more dangerous than regular household waste, some types of health care waste represent a higher risk to health.
The waste may include infectious waste, among which are sharps waste, body part waste, chemical or pharmaceutical waste and radioactive and cytotoxic waste of broken thermometers.