in Public Hospitals of Arak City

Not paying attention to management and control of medical wastes in different stages of production, keeping, gathering, transporting and finally eliminating them all have been creating various hard problems such that the environment and human’s health are in danger with the relevant consequences following. This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed in Vali-e Asr, Amir Kabir, Taleghani, Amir Al-Momenin and Imam Khomeini hospitals of Arak city in 2009. At the present research the current condition of gathering, maintaining, transportation and final elimination of hospital wastes of Arak city as well as proving an appropriate model are paid attention. The solid wastes were separated, weighed and registered in two sequential intervals. And in order to get acquaintance with the management procedure for medical solid wastes in the studied hospitals, a questionnaire approved by W.H.O was used and by referring to hospitals, the questions were replied by Managers and Hygiene Experts working at hospitals and their responses were recorded. The investigations made in 5 hospitals reveal that the average per annum is 2.9 Kg in 24 hours per active bed and 4.6 Kg for every patient. This volume consists of 60% for semi-home solid wastes, 39% for infectious solid wastes, 0.34% for sharp wastes, 0.28% for the pathologic and 0.38% for medicinal and chemical solid wastes as well. According to the results obtained in this study, in order to reduce these kinds of pollution in the hospitals, action should be taken to deal with pollutants at their source of generation, which should be focused within the hospitals. The staff members involved in waste collection and transport should practice all the personal protection measures. Of course, medical waste management cannot succeed without cooperation and participation of all groups of medical staff.