An Assessment of Medical Waste Management Practice in Kano Metropolis: The Case of Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital

Authors: Gujiba UK, Ali AF

DOI Info: N/A

ABSTRACT

The effective management of healthcare waste is an important element towards safeguarding public health and environmental quality. However, its practice in many parts of the less developed regions of the world is poor and considerably different from what is practiced in most of more developed regions. In Nigeria, for instance, healthcare waste is often co-disposed along with other wastes. This is unsustainable and not in compliance with global best practice. To identify areas of improvement, this paper assessed systematically, the practice of healthcare waste management and compliance with global standards in Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital in metropolitan Kano, Nigeria. Structured questionnaires, semi-formal interviews, observations and secondary sources of data were used in the research. The data were analysed using SPSS. The findings suggest a considerable level of awareness and knowledge (50%) of hospital waste management practices among the staff. However, most (66%) of them remain untrained in medical waste management. The study also observed low levels of compliance to global standards of healthcare waste management practices in the hospital. These include documentation, waste segregation, treatment, storage and final disposal. The most common practices of final waste disposals are burning (40%) and burying (30%) followed by open dumping (15%). Challenges observed from this research range from inadequate facilities for waste storage and final disposal to staff training and lack of awareness. Accordingly, some steps were recommended towards effective and sustainable healthcare waste management in the area.

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