Need to invest soon in high-tech medical waste treatment furnaces

(Baonghean) -For many different reasons, medical waste treatment in our province has not received proper investment and is becoming a "hot" issue, causing frustration among the people and even in hospitals.

In the first week of April, the medical waste warehouse of Nghe An Children's Hospital was filled with all kinds of specimens, needles, cotton swabs, bottles, etc. However, medical waste after being collected and classified in the rooms and departments was still continuously brought back, causing the warehouse to be overloaded. Doctor Le Thi Chau - Head of the Infection Control Department - Children's Hospital said: "According to the direction of the Department of Health, from November 2011, medical waste from the Children's Hospital will be transferred to the incinerator of the Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital for treatment. However, currently the incinerator of the Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital is damaged, so the waste has to be stored and preserved in the warehouse. Knowing that leaving it for a long time will cause pollution, the Children's Hospital cannot solve the problem because it does not have a specialized incinerator...".

At the Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital, it was learned that the waste incinerator has a broken recording unit and control capacitor. It is currently being repaired by the warranty unit, the Institute of Environmental Engineering Technology, and is expected to be completed by the end of April. Ms. Cao Thi Hue - Chief Technician, Infection Control Department said: "The incinerator was put into use in 2007 and operated normally, but since accepting to burn for 4 other medical facilities, namely the Mental Hospital, the Children's Hospital, the Provincial Preventive Medicine Center and the Traffic Hospital, it has been continuously damaged due to overload. Since the beginning of the year, the hospital's incinerator has burned up to 2,486 kg of medical waste from 4 hospitals and the Provincial Preventive Medicine Center, while the capacity of this incinerator only allows burning at a volume of 20 kg/hour, burning for 3 hours per day".

The incinerator of Nghe An Tuberculosis and Lung Hospital is broken and causing pollution due to overload.

Direct observation at the incinerator of the Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital clearly shows: This incinerator is too small, the ash from medical waste after burning does not burn completely (the amount of ash is quite large and the hospital itself does not know how to handle it). According to residents of Hamlet 4, Nghi Van Commune, recently, on windy days, smoke from the incinerator has flown into people's homes, causing a very unpleasant stench. Many people expressed concern that the pollution from the incinerator will affect the health of everyone in the family.

When it comes to pollution from medical waste incinerators, perhaps nowhere is worse than Tay Bac General Hospital. Tay Bac General Hospital's facilities were inherited from the old Nghia Dan District Hospital - built in 1980, with 80 beds. With the same number of patient rooms, the hospital now has to take care of 250 patient beds. The patient overload has led to an overload of medical waste with 50-60 kg/day. The amount of medical waste is so large but the hospital only has one dilapidated manual incinerator, burning oil. Every day the hospital burns waste once, each time, black smoke billows up, carried by the wind into the residential area. Doctor Tang Viet Ha - Director of Tay Bac General Hospital admitted that the hospital cannot control the spread of smoke as well as its toxicity.

According to the health sector, Nghe An currently has 39 hospitals, with 7,341 beds. The average amount of medical solid waste is 1.3 kg/bed/day, of which 25% is hazardous medical solid waste. Thus, on average, every day in the province, there are from 2,500 kg - 3,000 kg of hazardous medical solid waste discharged. It is estimated that in 2012, the amount of solid waste generated by medical facilities in the city and surrounding areas was nearly 2,300 tons, of which 573 tons was hazardous solid waste. Previously, this amount of waste was concentrated at the Hoval waste incinerator at the Provincial General Hospital with a capacity of 400 - 500 kg of waste/24 hours. However, the incinerator at the Provincial General Hospital is currently overloaded and seriously degraded, not ensuring environmental hygiene standards. Therefore, medical facilities must disperse waste and bring it to incinerators in district hospitals such as Hung Nguyen Hospital, Nghi Loc Hospital, Tuberculosis Hospital... However, these incinerators have small capacity, low lifespan, and are located in residential areas, affecting the environment and people's health.

To solve the "deadlock" in waste treatment, the Provincial People's Committee has recently assigned the Department of Health to coordinate with relevant departments, branches and sectors to develop and complete the project "Investing in the construction of a centralized hazardous solid medical waste treatment center" for medical facilities in Vinh City and neighboring districts, phase 2012 - 2020 using the most modern and advanced microwave technology, with a capacity of 2,500 - 3,000 kg/day. This project is currently in the process of completion and awaiting approval. Accordingly, the center's incinerator will use microwave technology to sterilize, without causing environmental pollution. By 2015, 75 - 80% of medical facilities will have hazardous solid waste treated to meet environmental standards; By 2020, 100% of medical facilities will have hazardous solid waste treated to meet environmental standards, of which 70% will be recycled and reused. The initial investment for a smokeless incinerator using "microwave" technology is over 51 billion VND. It can be said that this is a very necessary project, creating safety for the community, thoroughly solving the problem of medical waste. However, in the immediate future, to solve the current "hot" situation of waste, Nghe An's health sector should also find additional solutions to supplement the current temporary measures being applied.

Thanh Chung - Tu Thanh