Addressing healthcare waste in Kano hospitals

Recently, the new Kano Commissioner for Environment and Climate Change, Dr. Dahiru Hashim, expressed his dismay over healthcare waste management in some hospitals while on a visit during the end-of-month environmental sanitation.

He stated “Our aim is to ensure that people coming for medical care do not end up contracting other diseases or infections. We visited Waziri Shehu Gidado General Hospital, Bachirawa, Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital, and Abdullahi Wase Teaching Hospital to evaluate their hygiene standards, particularly their toilets, general surroundings, and waste disposal sites.

“As hospitals, we do not expect to see open burning of refuse, especially biomedical waste. In some facilities, waste is not even sorted properly. Ideally, hospitals should have safety boxes to separate biomedical waste from regular waste. We have drawn their attention to this, and we are optimistic that, following our intervention, we will see significant improvements by next month.”

This issue of healthcare waste management dominated the 50th National Council of Health meeting in January 2007, and efforts to address the problem were itemised. For the record, the council approved the following amongst others:

By the end of 2007, every healthcare facility should put in place an infection control and waste management committee to include head of the hospital or his representative, the heads of departments in the hospital, and the registered environmental health officer in charge of waste management in the hospital, all health care facilities should adopt the World Health Organisation [read national] standard colour coding  for various categories of waste storage and disposal; by the end of 2007, every healthcare and research facility, where none presently exists shall create an Environmental Health Department/Unit manned by qualified professionals charged with the responsibility of Environmental health services including waste management in such facility; every healthcare facility shall commence healthcare waste segregation from the point of generation; by the end of 2010, every Teaching Hospital, Specialist Hospital and Federal Medical Centres and other similar health care facilities (whether public or private) with more than 200 beds shall provide within their premises a modern incinerator which complies with the World Health Organisation standards on air pollution emission, capable of on-site safe destruction of all hazardous waste generated in such facility; and ensure the employment of sufficient number of Environmental Health Officers for effective management of waste including healthcare wastes within their facilities; health care facilities which have installed modern incinerators with excess capacity, should lease such excess capacity out for the use of other health facilities around them at a fee; every Teaching Hospital, Specialist Hospital and Federal Medical Centres and other such health care facilities (whether public or private) with more than 200 beds shall provide within their premises a modern waste water treatment plant to ensure that all contaminated waste water are treated prior to disposal outside the facility; and every other health care facility provider shall have a subsisting contract with a registered healthcare waste or sewage collector who also has a disposal contract with a disposal facility for the collection and final disposal of health care waste from such facilities.

Eighteen years later, not much is achieved as far as secondary health care facilities are concerned in the state. Existing policies, such as the National Policy on Injection Safety and Health Care Waste Management (2007), theNational Environmental Health Practice Regulation (2016), and thePolicy Guidelines on Excreta and Sewage Management, provide a framework for achieving this essential goal.

Now that the new commissioner has demonstrated a commitment to addressing this issue, it is crucial to revisit these recommendations and implement them effectively in Kano State. Achieving this will require proper coordination and collaboration between the state Ministry of Health and other relevant stakeholders.