Bio-medical waste disposal Broward is one of the greatest responsibilities of healthcare facilities, such as hospitals, clinics, nursery homes, dentist offices and other such establishments which produce large amounts of medical wastes every day.
Infectious or medical wastes can contain hazardous or potentially hazardous materials and substances, as well as pathogens capable of transmitting diseases that are harmful for human beings or animals. These wastes are not only a hazard to the individual (healthcare employees, patients, visitors or medical waste management handlers), but also for the community and the environment, albeit at a lower level. This is why they must be treated properly and in a way described by the state and federal laws and guidelines to ensure no one gets physically injured or infected.
There are, depending on the state where the healthcare facility is doing business, certain differences when it comes to bio-medical waste disposal. Different regulations apply in, for instance, Florida and Massachusetts, although federal laws are the same. This is why the hospital management must first learn about these differences before engaging in any kind of bio-medical waste disposal. Doing this improperly is sometimes even worse than not doing it at all.
Classification and Other Bio-Medical Waste Disposal Rules a Hospital Must Follow
Classification of medical wastes is one of the most important things about bio-medical waste disposal. Most states in the US have at least 3 or 4 levels of classifications of biohazardous wastes, and some have even more.
A healthcare facility, therefore, needs to closely follow medical waste management regulations regarding classification, as well as any other regulation regarding handling, treating, disposing, packaging, labeling, or destroying of medical waste, as the inability or inaction to do so results first in financial penalties (the minimal is $250 per instance and it goes up to $100.000 if improper bio-medical waste disposal has caused someone his or her life), loss of work license (the hospital will be shut down immediately), and jail sentence for those held responsible.
It is very important to properly segregate infectious and non-infectious waste at the place where they are produced and generated. But separating medical waste from regular waste is only the first step.
There are many different categories of medical waste as well. For instance, sharps, such as orthopedic scalpels and hypodermic needles, have to be collected in a special, hard plastic, pierce and leak resistant sharps container, chemicals and liquids such as blood and body fluids need to be contained in non-leakable containers of their own, and pathological waste is disposed of in red biohazard plastic bags.
What Bio-Medical Waste Disposal Method to Use?
Then, of course, there are differences when it comes to how to properly dispose of or destroy medical wastes. Incineration is the most commonly used bio-medical waste disposal method, but it only works with solid materials, liquids have to be disposed of in some other way, usually via chemical disinfection and then releasing the liquid into the sanitary sewer.
But we made bio-medical waste disposal Broward more complicated than it really is to ensure safety.
