How the hospital waste is being managed in the public sector hospitals Hyderabad Sindh, Pakistan

To meet the need of health care of rapidly growing population, many health facilities (hospital, clinics and laboratories) have been established in public and private sectors in Pakistan, due to which production of hospital waste is increased, frequently loaded with pathogenic agents, which is dangerous. If this waste is not managed in an appropriate way, it can leave unwanted effects on environment as well as on human being\u27s health. So it is important that this waste should be collected, transported and dumped properly. In LMICs (low and Middle Income Countries) like Pakistan HWM (Hospital Waste Management) is area which needs more importance. The study was undertaken to identify the different practices to handle the HWM (Hospital waste Management) in Public sector hospitals of Hyderabad Sindh. For this purpose four secondary-care level hospitals of Hyderabad city were visited. Hospital administration, HCP (Health care providers) Medics & Paramedics, HW collector and handlers were interviewed. The study reveals that the non-availability of capacity building plan, lack or improper monitoring system, non-availability of budget, PPE (personnel protective measures) were not undertaken by the staff, Sindh hospital waste Management rules 2014 were not followed properly, due to which health and environmental problems can occur not only for the staff and the patients but for the population living in the catchment area of hospital. From the interviews it has come to know that, the budget is not available for the management of hospital waste, monitoring and supervision from collection to disposal of waste is not being undertaken properly and training of all staff and awareness programs for patients and visitors is very much required. From the study it is also come to know that Municipal Committee is responsible to collect the waste from the hospitals and dump the collected material along with the domestic waste collected from the other areas dump in Aliabad. The dumping site was very near to residential area, due to inappropriate waste management system and burning of waste, the people of the area facing lot of health related problems of eyes, skins, sore throat, respiratory infections, hepatitis B & C, dog bites. On the basis of the findings it is suggested that the dumping site should be shifted from the residential area and instead of burning other methods should be adopted to save the health of people and the environment