The Chief Medical Director, University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Dr Thomas Agan, has warned health practitioners to be cautious with the way and manner in which they handle medical waste materials that may be injurious to the health of medical workers. Agan dropped the warning in Calabar at a one day sensitisation workshop organized by the National Ecological Fund to create awareness on the dangers of waste handling.
The CMD stated that medical waste can be very hardazous not only to health workers but to the health of the public at large.
“These wastes do not necessarily have to be generated in the hospital. They are also capable of being consequences associated with poor handling of medical waste material
known to be hazardous to the health of medical workers and the public at large and could be generated at home like dead house pets, chicken and others. “They are also generated in slaughter houses like bones, infected meat and other remnants. We also see this in bird houses especially with the current bird flu which is potentially a health hazard to man’’, he said.
He said that all waste must be properly handled to avoid exposing the handlers and public unnecessarily. “Waste management is an integral part of any hospital hygiene because health care wastes are considered as a reservoir of pathogenic micro-organisms’’, he said.
Agan maintained that if there is a functional waste management practice and policy, waste can become an opportunity to reap huge benefits stressing that the benefits can include economic, environmental, social and others.
Earlier, Permanent Secretary, Ecological Fund Office, Engr. Goni Sheikh, stated that the workshop is going to create awareness and develop a sustainable management of medical waste.
Source: Nationalmirroronline.net
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