How to Manage Medical Waste
At present waste management has become a great concern for us. The waste can be divided into different categories. Among them medical waste or clinical waste is one of the categories. So what is medical waste?
Medical waste is one kind of biological product, which mainly remains as useless materials. The disposal of medical waste has bad effect on the environment and sometimes it becomes the cause of infectious diseases.
Knowing about materials that can be considered Medical Waste:
Waste from medical and pathological laboratories like culture and broths that’s contained human pathogenic and virulent organisms.
Attenuated vaccines or discarded live with the instruments that are used to transfer and mix the vaccines.
Veterinary treatment the rejected animal parts, fluids and tissues are considered to be medical waste.
Human blood containing instruments and blood containing products.
Materials with microorganism contamination.
Agents that increase morbidity and mortality of human being.
Different syringes, needles of medical instruments and medical sharps.
If different instruments like pipettes, vials contain human blood and other infectious organism.
Razor blades if come in contact with infectious materials.
Pharmaceutical waste, outdated or patients return materials.
The following procedure can be followed for the management of medical waste:
Medical and Pathological Waste.
1. Medical waste is mainly produced from different hospitals and nursing institutions. So the authority of those institutions needs to be correctly identified the medical waste and the management of the wastes according to health care procedures.
2. Different medical and pathological waste containing bags should be red in color and always rigid. The bags should be kept always closed except when the waste is being included or added.
3. Both sides of the closed medical waste container should be marked with international bio-hazard symbol or can be written “Bio-hazardous”.
4. When the container is totally filled, the container must be securely closed. Then the bio-hazardous waste should be removed according to the proper way through a licensed hauler.
5. If there is no pick up within a week of generation, the waste stream should be stored in a freezer. The pickups can be every three months if you are using the freezing process. The temperature of the freezer must be at 0oc or lower at this point you can document the electronic record associated with the freezer. Sometimes various problems can occur but an automatic email should go out to all employees. If they are unable to solve the problem within 24 hours, a pickup will be scheduled within a week.
Sharps Instruments and Needles.
Different sharps instrument and all kinds of needles are used for medical purpose and are preserved in different ways. The waste containing container should be made with plastic materials and labeled with the words “Hazardous and Sharp”. Also the non medical sharps, such as unused blades and needles should be kept in rigid plastic container. Now it can be disposed as a medical waste.
Dropped or Released Medical Waste.
It should be cleaned instantly. Otherwise it may cause harmful effect not only on the environment but also infectious to human health. All pharmaceutical or Medical Waste should be stored with a secure lid.
