Distinguished Professor, College of Liberal Arts/Shanghai University. Shanghai - China.
Hist Cienc Saude Manguinhos. 2020 Sep;27(suppl 1):231-251. doi: 10.1590/S0104-59702020000300012.
Hospitals and other health facilities generate an ever-increasing amount of waste, approximately 15% of which may be infectious, toxic, or radioactive. The World Health Organization has been addressing the issue since the 1980s. After initially focusing on high-income countries, it then focused on low-income countries, with unsafe disposal methods in landfills and inadequate incinerators as major concerns. Gradually, the understanding of the issue has undergone several shifts, including from a focus on the component of medical waste considered "hazardous" to all forms of waste, and from accepting medical waste as a necessary downside of high-quality healthcare to seeing the avoidance of healthcare waste as a component of high quality healthcare.
医院和其他卫生机构产生的废物日益增多，其中约 15%可能具有传染性、毒性或放射性。世界卫生组织自 20 世纪 80 年代以来一直在处理这个问题。最初关注的是高收入国家，然后关注的是低收入国家，主要关注的是不安全的填埋场处理方法和不充分的焚烧炉。渐渐地，人们对这个问题的认识发生了几次转变，包括从关注被认为“危险”的医疗废物成分转变为关注所有形式的废物，从接受医疗废物是高质量医疗保健的必要代价转变为避免医疗保健废物是高质量医疗保健的一个组成部分。
