Barua Uttama, Hossain Dipita
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka, 1000 Bangladesh.
Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX UK.
J Mater Cycles Waste Manag. 2021;23(6):2087-2100. doi: 10.1007/s10163-021-01291-8. Epub 2021 Sep 12.
Medical waste (MW) poses serious threats to environmental and public health. Throughout the world, existing challenges of medical waste management (MWM) have been heightened in the Covid-19 situation due to an increase in the massive amount of MW. Even before the pandemic, MWM has always been a concern in Bangladesh. The objectives of this research are to review the related national policy initiatives and guidelines in Bangladesh in comparison with the international guidelines, to evaluate the present scenario of the MWM system, and to explore the scope of Impact Assessment (IA) in improving the system. From the analysis, it has been found that several national guidelines have been formulated during this pandemic covering important issues related to the MWM system, which is commendable. Some of these guidelines comply with international guidelines, but there are inconsistencies among these. However, neither the previous MWM policy tools nor these guidelines are implemented accordingly. In this pandemic, an IA framework has also been published in Bangladesh, which is praiseworthy. Although no evidence could be found on its implementation either. Therefore, it is necessary to take initiative for the implementation of this IA framework. Thereby the policy makers will be able to identify the gaps prohibiting the implementation of the MWM policy tools and guidelines. This will enable them to take corrective actions accordingly to improve the MWM system by enhancing the preparedness and capacity against any possible future situations like pandemic overwhelming the MW situation in Bangladesh.
医疗废物对环境和公众健康构成严重威胁。在全球范围内，由于新冠疫情期间医疗废物大量增加，医疗废物管理面临的现有挑战更加严峻。甚至在疫情之前，医疗废物管理在孟加拉国就一直是一个令人担忧的问题。本研究的目的是将孟加拉国相关的国家政策举措和指南与国际指南进行比较，评估医疗废物管理系统的现状，并探讨影响评估在改善该系统方面的作用范围。通过分析发现，在此次疫情期间已经制定了若干涵盖医疗废物管理系统重要问题的国家指南，这值得称赞。其中一些指南符合国际指南，但这些指南之间存在不一致之处。然而，以前的医疗废物管理政策工具和这些指南都没有得到相应实施。在此次疫情中，孟加拉国还发布了一个影响评估框架，这值得赞扬。不过，也没有发现其实施的相关证据。因此，有必要主动实施这个影响评估框架。这样政策制定者就能识别阻碍医疗废物管理政策工具和指南实施的差距。这将使他们能够采取相应的纠正措施，通过增强应对未来可能出现的类似疫情等情况的准备和能力来改善医疗废物管理系统，因为疫情可能会使孟加拉国的医疗废物情况不堪重负。
