Our Hospital Waste: What we can do

Visit a hospital in your area and find out how many people are availing the services there, how many operations are being conducted daily, how many syringes are used and how much garbage is generated etc. Prepare a chart citing the statistics. Find out how the different types of wastes are generated in the hospital and how they are disposed off. What are the methods of personal hygiene followed in the hospital? The wastes generated in hospitals should be stored separately in different boxes with different colour codes such as yellow, red and blue. Methods to deal with the wastes should be suggested. Hospital wastes can manage through various methods. Incineration, land filling, micro waving, autoclaving, burning the wastes, chemical treatments are some of the methods to treat the wastes. Ascertain whether the hospital managements are using any of these methods. Make the management of hospitals understand that keeping our surroundings clean is as important as curing diseases and discovering new medicines. For this, conduct campaigns to create awareness about cleanliness. Meetings should be conducted with hospital staff stressing on their role in the management of wastes. Their problems and scientific methods of managements of wastes should be discussed. Discuss what can be cone to keep the domestic and hospital wastes separated. The methods, which are used to keep the hospitals clean, should also be practiced in clinical laboratories. Find out if they are being followed.