TITLE:
Hospital Waste Management at the Provincial Hospital and the Notre Dame des Apôtres Hospital of Sarh, Chad
AUTHORS:
Lévy Manna Agdet, Ngoussou Mbailaou, Jean Beinde, Malato Ganda Adoum, Mbété Adoum Poutoudet, Doloum Gomoung
KEYWORDS:
Hospital Waste, Biomedical Waste, Management, Environment, Water and Pollution
JOURNAL NAME:
Technology and Investment,
Vol.16 No.1,
February
18,
2025
ABSTRACT: In order to improve environmental and individual health and make aware that poor management of biomedical waste is a vector for the spread of many diseases, a study was conducted on the management of hospital waste in two main reference health structures, the Provincial Hospital (HP) and the Hospital of Our Lady of the Apostles (HNDA) of Sarh. The general objective of this study is to contribute to the reduction of environmental pollution through the management of biomedical waste. More specifically, it is to: 1) identify the sources of the waste, 2) sort and classify the waste by their categories, 3) assess the quality of the water in the yard of each health facility involved. The study was based on surveys, documentary research and physico-chemical and bacteriological analyses of the water in the two hospitals. The results of this work made it possible to identify that the DBM management system remains inadequate and that neither of these two reference health facilities in the province had a hospital waste management plan or produced waste management activity reports. 96% of the medical and paramedical staff interviewed confirmed that biomedical waste was sorted, 32% of the medical and paramedical staff confirmed that the waste treatment program was not followed before disposal, and 16% were not informed about hospital waste management. All the support staff for hygiene and sanitation services in the two health facilities are illiterate. In terms of vaccinations, 100% of health care staff and waste managers at the hospitals are not vaccinated against hepatitis or tetanus serum (TSS). The physicochemical and bacteriological analyses of the water showed the poor quality of these different waters, with the presence of germs indicating pollution.