Ezirim Idoteyin, Agbo Francis
National Agency for the Control of AIDS, Abuja, Nigeria.
J Health Pollut. 2018 Sep 10;8(19):180913. doi: 10.5696/2156-9614-8.19.180913. eCollection 2018 Sep.
As Nigeria strives to improve health services nationwide, there is a corresponding increase in laboratory testing, care and treatment activities, producing more healthcare waste that must be safely managed. In the past, Nigeria lacked an enabling environment for healthcare waste management, as it did not have a national health care waste management policy. However, in 2013 a policy and strategic plan for healthcare waste management was developed to address this problem.
The present study performed an environmental safeguard audit to determine the level of implementation of the 2013 national policy in the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory in Nigeria. We also sought to determine whether the 2013 national policy has had an impact on healthcare waste management.
The present study was conducted in 1921 health facilities, selected using the probability proportional to size sampling method.
The present study found that 44.8% of health facilities surveyed had healthcare waste management work plans adapted from the 2013 national policy. In addition, 89.2% of health facilities segregated waste. This is an important improvement, as previous studies reported that there was little to no waste segregation at health facilities. Furthermore, 41.4% of health facilities had designated persons or units handling healthcare waste, in contrast to previous studies which found no designated person or unit responsible for healthcare waste. However, the quality of healthcare waste management varied across states and health facilities.
Following the introduction of healthcare waste management policy, health facilities in Nigeria have improved waste management practices. However, training, availability of required tools and functional governance structures are essential to the implementation of an effective healthcare waste management policy.
The study findings show that safe healthcare waste management can be implemented if the government leads by providing policy and required resources, while health facilities put standard operating procedures in place to guide day to day healthcare waste management operations.
Obtained.
The protocol was approved by the National Health Research Ethics Committee of Nigeria.
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
随着尼日利亚努力在全国范围内改善医疗服务，实验室检测、护理和治疗活动相应增加，产生了更多必须得到安全管理的医疗废物。过去，尼日利亚缺乏有利于医疗废物管理的环境，因为它没有国家医疗废物管理政策。然而，2013年制定了一项医疗废物管理政策和战略计划来解决这一问题。
本研究进行了一次环境保障审计，以确定2013年国家政策在尼日利亚36个州和联邦首都地区的实施水平。我们还试图确定2013年国家政策是否对医疗废物管理产生了影响。
本研究在1921个医疗机构中进行，采用按规模大小成比例的概率抽样方法进行选择。
本研究发现，接受调查的医疗机构中有44.8%制定了根据2013年国家政策改编的医疗废物管理工作计划。此外，89.2%的医疗机构对废物进行了分类。这是一项重要的改进，因为以前的研究报告称，医疗机构几乎没有或根本没有进行废物分类。此外，41.4%的医疗机构有指定的人员或单位处理医疗废物，而以前的研究没有发现有指定的人员或单位负责医疗废物。然而，医疗废物管理的质量在不同州和医疗机构之间存在差异。
在引入医疗废物管理政策之后，尼日利亚的医疗机构改善了废物管理做法。然而，培训、所需工具的可用性和有效的治理结构对于实施有效的医疗废物管理政策至关重要。
研究结果表明，如果政府通过提供政策和所需资源来发挥带头作用，同时医疗机构制定标准操作程序来指导日常医疗废物管理操作，就可以实现安全的医疗废物管理。
已获得。
该方案已获得尼日利亚国家卫生研究伦理委员会的批准。
作者声明不存在相互竞争的财务利益。
