ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT PRACTICES OF BIOMEDICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT IN SELECTED HOSPITALS OF AJMER CITY, RAJASTHAN (INDIA)

Sangeeta Patan* and Praveen Mathur

ABSTRACT

Handling and disposal of wastes has become a big task due to growing urban population. Improper disposal has become one of the challenging problems of urbanization. The study was conducted to determine the biomedical waste management system in selected hospitals of Ajmer City. The key to minimization and effective management of health-care waste is segregation and identification of the waste. Appropriate handling, treatment, and disposal of waste by type reduce costs and do much to protect public health. This study was done to survey the practice of biomedical waste such as collection, storage, transportation and disposal along with the amount of generated biomedical waste in various government hospitals of Ajmer city, and create awareness among the staff and patient about biomedical wastes through questionnaire. Bio-medical waste is one of more serious and hazardous environmental pollutants and if it is not disposed off with proper management it could produce large number of infectious diseases which would be harmful to livelihood of human beings & other living organism. A detailed Field visit, Interview and questionnaire survey method were implemented to collect information regarding different biomedical waste management aspects, including medical waste generation, segregation and collection, storage, transportation, disposal and safety of cleaning personnel. During study it was observed that waste is not collected at regular interval. The Segregation of hospital waste plays the key role in the safe and efficient management of biomedical waste, especially infectious wastes from the non-infectious waste. Proper segregation of this waste at hospitals is recommended.

Keywords: Biomedical, Hazardous Environmental Pollutants, Infectious Diseases, Segregation.