Parida Annapurna, Capoor Malini Rajinder, Bhowmik Kumar Tapas
Department of Microbiology, VMMC Safdarjung Hospital, Biomedical Waste Unit, VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, India.
Department of Microbiology, Biomedical Waste Unit, VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, India.
J Lab Physicians. 2019 Oct-Dec;11(4):292-299. doi: 10.4103/JLP.JLP_88_19.
Biomedical waste poses physical, chemical, radiological, and microbiological risks to the public and health-care workers (HCWs) for current and future generations.
The aim was to gauge the depth of understanding amongst HCWs on biomedical waste management (BMWM).
A predesigned questionnaire on knowledge, attitude, and practices on BMWM Rules, 2016 (Principle), and 2018 (Amendment), Solid Waste Rules, 2016, and health hazards in HCW was distributed to all participants.
Only 68% of the participants knew that the most important step in waste management is waste segregation. Eighty-two percent of the HCWs working in this setup knew of the different color-coded bins used for segregation. However, awareness was lacking with respect to health hazards associated with improperly segregated and disposed off biomedical waste as only 49% answered the questions on the hazards of waste correctly. Laboratory waste handling was found to be the least understood area of the newer guidelines.
Training aspects of health-care waste management should be strengthened so that the current, existing, and future regulations are practiced diligently and uniformly. Periodic evaluation and assessment should become routine to enforce adherence to waste management.
生物医学废弃物对当代及后代的公众和医护人员构成物理、化学、放射和微生物风险。
目的是评估医护人员对生物医学废弃物管理（BMWM）的理解深度。
向所有参与者发放了一份预先设计的问卷，内容涉及2016年（原则）和2018年（修订）的生物医学废弃物管理规则、2016年固体废弃物规则以及医护人员面临的健康危害方面的知识、态度和实践情况。
只有68%的参与者知道废弃物管理中最重要的步骤是废弃物分类。在此机构工作的82%的医护人员知道用于分类的不同颜色编码垃圾桶。然而，对于与分类不当和处置的生物医学废弃物相关的健康危害缺乏认识，因为只有49%的人正确回答了关于废弃物危害的问题。发现实验室废弃物处理是新指南中最不为人理解的领域。
应加强医疗保健废弃物管理的培训方面，以便认真且统一地执行当前、现有和未来的法规。定期评估和考核应成为常态，以强制遵守废弃物管理规定。
