Comparison on Disposal Strategies for Clinical Waste: Hospitals In Sri Lanka

Abstract

Clinical waste is potentially dangerous because it may contain waste resulting from medical, nursing, dental, pharmaceutical, skin penetration or other related clinical activity. Therefore, it is important to exercise special caution in the management of clinical waste in order to minimize its potential danger to public health and environment. Hence, this research intends to conduct preliminary study on clinical waste management practices with special emphasis to disposal strategies and associated cost. Six case studies, both public and private hospitals were used to collect data covering nineteen semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that the highest and the least clinical waste generated were infectious and pharmaceutical waste respectively. The cost effective disposal strategies were diesel incinerators (Rs. 28.22 per kg) and dispose in a land (Rs. 12.50 per kg). In general, cost for disposal of clinical waste in public sector hospitals were Rs. 84,084.22 per day while private sector hospitals were Rs. 42,101.89 per day. Negligence of the worker's safety and issues from the outsourced companies, were the common and critical challenges for both private and public hospitals