| Environmentally
Responsible Health Care Waste Management
Why this project?
In pursuit of sustainable
development goals, Yonge Nawe has a three-year medical waste management
project that promotes environmentally responsible health care waste management.
The project was prompted by the findings obtained on waste management surveys
conducted by Yonge Nawe and international partners at two health facilities
in 2001. The most critical finding obtained was that health workers and
the public are ignorant about sustainable medical waste management practices,
yet health care waste has potential harmful effects to human life and the
environment. Unsafe health care handling practices increase the risk of
people involved in waste management to contracting HIV/Aids (NWMS 2003).
The project will therefore assist the health facilities and community members
to manage medical waste in a sustainable way by offering training and awareness
creation.
Objectives of the project
The main objectives of the
project are to contribute to the quality of the country’s environment through
improved medical waste management practices. In addition, it is to
protect the public and the environment from any harmful effects caused
by medical waste.
Partnership to promote sustainable
waste management
At a regional and international
level, Yonge Nawe is exchanging information and knowledge on sustainable
waste management with groundWork in South Africa, Livaningo in Mozambique
and is a member of the Global Anti Incineration Alliance (GAIA).
Medical waste management
challenges
There is no program focusing
on management of waste generated by home-based care services.
Waste contaminated with body
fluids increases the risk of transmitting infectious diseases such as HIV/Aids.
There is an assumption that
home-based care waste is disposed off in pit latrines; yet some homesteads
have no pit latrines.
Project Progress
The organization has been
involved in a number of medical waste management activities. They include
conducting base line studies on medical waste and waste incineration, a
campaign on dangers of waste incineration to the people and the environment
and awareness creation on dangers of medical waste.
Up coming activities
There will a medical waste
management training of trainers course early 2004. It will target managers
from the relevant stakeholders. This team will promote continuity of medical
waste management training and practices beyond the three years.
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