Characterization, quantification and management situation of medical waste in Nepal

Waste management is always a serious problem in developing country like Nepal, Medicalwaste has become a matter of major concern at present with the growth of health facilities inboth public and private sectors of Nepal, It is a serious concern, as most of its waste goes tomunicipal waste management system, There is no proper or separate waste handling, dumpingor incinerating practice for hazardous or hospital waste in Nepal, This study aimed to evaluatethe characterization, quantification and management situation of various health care centers inNepal, A study on the waste characterization and quantification as well as existing wastemanagement system was conducted in six different hospitals and nursing homes of Nepalduring 2004 to 2007, These hospitals has been serving about 0,25 million patients in averageevery year, The methodology involved in the study is the collection of the waste from eachward, segregation, characterization into infectious, non-infectious waste groups andquantification. In each hospital investigation was conducted for 7-15 days, Existingmanagement practice were directly observed and documented, Necessary infonnation wasalso collected through fonnal and infonnal consultations with different stakeholders of theconcern hospitals, This study found that the average daily waste generation in surveyedhospitals is 69,35 kg, The average per capita waste generation in these hospitals is 0.66 kg inwhich infectious waste was 0, 13 kg/day/person and non-infectious waste was 0,53kg/day/person, The average infectious waste was almost 22,07% and non- infectious wastewas 77.93% in the surveyed hospitals, Application of strong policies and legislation measuresfor proper management of the medical waste is highly needed