Qualities and quantities assessment of Hospital waste (a case study: Dehgolan City, 2009)

Healthcare waste is a by-product of healthcare. Poor management of these wastes exposes the community to infections, toxic effects and injuries. The purpose of this study was to investigation the qualities and quantities characteristics of infectious and domestic wastes of Dehgolan clinics in Kurdistan province. For this purpose health care centers was identify including hospitals, clinics, infirmary clinic, veterinary centers and the other related medical centers. The medical wastes were measured during both cold and warm seasons. For each season in a period of 15 days infection and domestic solid wastes were weighted by a 10 gr laboratory scale separately. The current condition of qualities, gathering, keeping and final eliminating, was investigated by questionnaire and observation techniques for each health care centers. Our results indicated that total produced waste in any 24 hours duration equal to 61 kg, including 37.8, 22.5 and 0.7 kg of domestic wastes, infectious solid wastes and sharp objects respectively. The average per annual was 1.9 kg in 24 hours each hospital bed of the study area. Finally the indicator characteristics of hospital wastes in Dehgolan health care centers were investigated. City Hospital is equipped with an incinerator and 41.2% of health care centers used the incinerator for disposal of infectious solid waste and sharp objects.