Latest update April 24th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 01, 2010 News
In a matter of weeks, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) will launch for the first time a hydroclave biomedical waste system. In fact, the system is already being dubbed the most modern biomedical waste system that has ever been introduced to the Caribbean, Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, disclosed recently.
And the World Bank, he revealed, already has plans streamlined to use the local system as a model for other countries. As a result, hospital inspectors will be dispatched to all hospital facilities including private providers of health to ensure that safe measures are in place as well. According to the Minister, the GPHC has acquired a new truck which will actually visit hospital facilities to pick up waste for disposal in the hydroclave system as regular waste and medical waste should not mix.
And only those hospitals that meet the safety requirements will be eligible to have their operating licenses renewed, the Minister added.
“This we are doing not because we want to make life tough for anybody. We are doing this because we are all interested in the same things –high quality safe health care. That is what people come to us for. We have to ensure that they not only get help but they get help of the highest quality and not get some other problem because we didn’t do it safely.”
The need to ensure that hospital waste, particularly injection needles and other sharps instruments are disposed properly is of paramount importance, said the Minister, as he reflected on a few incidents last year whereby syringes complete with needles and other medical wastes were callously dumped in sections of the city. This newspaper had first highlighted the malicious act.
The Minister had ruled out the GPHC and other established private hospitals as the perpetrators but however related a scenario recently of how the waste could have been callously disposed presenting a potential dangerous situation to members of the public.
He noted that while the hospital staffers from the Chief Executive Officer right down to the cleaners have a responsibility to ensure that medical wastes are managed safely until it reaches the relevant waste handlers, safety could be compromised outside of the hospital setting.
“We were able to trace how those syringes got dumped. The trucks come and pick up the waste from the hospital then it goes to Bourda Market to pick up more waste. They gaff, (waste handlers) buy a coconut and no one is taking care of the truck. Another guy comes and pick up the bags or containers and there is no one there to stop him. He wants the containers so he disposes the contents…”
And so in order to prevent such a situation from repeating itself, the Minister noted that plans for the hydroclave system was swiftly brought into being.
Last year, the Minister had boldly announced that no license will be issued to any health care facility this year unless they are able to persuade officials of the Ministry of Health that they have mechanisms in place to deal with hazardous waste.
This move, the Minister had said is in accordance with the Health Facilities Licensing Act.
The Act was brought into existence so as to ensure that health facilities operate in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Health Ministry. According to Minister Ramsammy, the license for a hospital includes the need for occupational health and safety measures.
As a result, he disclosed that health facilities must have a safe way to deal with their waste or risk not being licensed.
“Either you develop your own means or you can access ours at a cost but you have no choice. Your license is dependent on it. Unless you are able to persuade us that you can have a safe way to deal with your waste, your license will be withdrawn. It is as simple as that,” the Minister had firmly asserted.
It is for this very reason, the Minister had disclosed that the Environment Health Department of the Ministry of Health was undergoing massive structural changes, whereby sanitary inspection was being modified to deal with Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) within the sector as well.
And since the OH&S changes go beyond just putting things in place, the Minister highlighted that there is need for health workers also to be properly educated.
“I used to be appalled at how we dealt with biomedical waste. At the Georgetown Public Hospital there was some attempt to sterilise them first before getting rid of them but generally in Guyana people use to deal with these biomedical waste such as syringes as domestic waste. And while the public sector was acutely aware and adopted a policy of ‘you didn’t see you didn’t know’, the Private Sector got rid of their waste with absolute abandonment,” the Minister recounted.
And in order to reverse the unethical practice, the Ministry of Health was on a mission since last year to ensure that all health facility in Guyana, ranging from a health post to a large hospital, have mechanisms in place to deal with their waste.
“We have developed our own prototype in some cases and we have adopted some prototype for use in our hospital,” the Minister disclosed.
In this regard, he revealed that the GPHC has adopted the hydroclave system which will be installed to sterilise all waste. The waste materials, the Minister said, will be subjected to various other actions such as pulverising before they could be discarded safely.
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