Study of Hazardous Biomedical Waste Management Practices and Development of Hazardous biomedical Waste Management Guidelines in Addis Ababa

The management of healthcare and other hazardous waste was of great importance to the welfare of the people and country at large due to its potential environmental hazards and public health risks. The waste produced in the course of health-care activities carries a higher potential for infection and injury. The World Health Organization has graded healthcare waste as the second most hazardous waste after radioactive waste. Addis Ababa, like other developing countries cities faces the problem of healthcare waste management. All these waste streams were being collected, transported and disposed with the other municipal waste streams. A sustainably safe management system needs to be installed for the hazardous waste. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess hazardous waste management practice and design standard hazardous waste management guidelines. Health care institutions generation hotspot points were randomly sampled for data generation and collected data were analyzed to determine generation rates per health care institution (hospital, health center and Clinics) per person for biomedical waste. The data collection for determining hazardous waste generation rate has been conducted for seven consecutive days. Characterization study has been done by categorizing the wastes into infectious, noninfectious and sharp wastes. Questionnaire survey has been carried out to gather waste management practice of the institutions. The average biomedical waste generation of Addis Ababa city health care institutions was 465.17 kg/day for hospital, 15.61 kg/day for health centre and 8.88 kg/day for clinic. The survey indicated that composition of biomedical waste in hospitals was 33% infectious, 2% sharps and 65% non-infectious. The generation rate of biomedical waste in hospitals was 154.45, 10.72 and 300 kg/day for infectious, sharps and noninfectious waste respectively. The composition of biomedical waste in the health centers was found to be 30% infectious, 9% sharps and 61% noninfectious. And, the biomedical waste generation rate in the health center was 4.67, 1.47 and 9.47 kg/day for infectious, sharps and noninfectious waste respectively. However, the biomedical waste compositions in clinics were 21.2% infectious, 9.9% sharps and 68.9% noninfectious and about 1.88, 0.88 and 6.11 kg/clinic/day of infectious, sharps and noninfectious biomedical waste respectively was generated in Addis Ababa. Regarding hazardous waste management practices in the health care institutions hotspot areas, the survey shown that most of the hazardous wastes were not properly segregated and managed across all the three streams. The study showed that the hazardous and non-hazardous wastes were mixed together and disposed into the environment carelessly, with the exception of the Health care institution wastes which usually were incinerated. Collection service was being rendered by small and micro enterprises in the city. However there were no occupational safety and health issues addressed with the system. Used chemical containers were sorted/collected and sold to people for reuse and there was no records concerning how empty containers were handled. In most cases hazardous wastes from health care facilities and infectious wastes reported to be burnt on open spaces which may lead to serious air pollution problem and health hazard from the emission. This brief assessment showed that no legally registered facilities have been established for the disposal of hazardous wastes. The assessment also revealed that most health care facilities that were regularly inspected do not meet the standard limit requirements set by the regulatory bodies. It also showed that there was no institutional system working on hazardous biomedical waste management system separately.