The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has already turned healthy places around the world into living hells with massive death tolls because of its fastest-spreading nature, and continuously leading to lockdowns in almost every part of the world, Bangladesh is not in the line of exception.
The medical wastes are hazardous to public health because they host potential virus particles that can be hidden beneath human tissues, items contaminated with blood bags, needles, syringes or any other sharp object, body fluids-remaining like dressings, plaster casts, cotton swabs, beddings contaminated with blood or body fluid etc.
Although Bangladesh has not yet been victimised by Covid-19 in terms of the death count compared to Wuhan in China, New York in the United States or the whole population of European countries like Italy, Spain and France – the medical waste management has always been an alarming threating issue to think about.
Most of the time, we have to observe the public health catastrophes such as cholera, typhoid, pneumonia etc. or even sexual diseases like HIV and we blame the polluted environment and human nature and behaviour. Always it can not be blame the water or air, but it can be sourced easily from medical wastes.
The current handling of medical waste is in direct violation of the Medical Waste (Management and Processing) Rules 2008, which states “medical wastes could not be mixed with other wastes at any stage — while producing inside hospitals, while collecting from hospitals, while transporting, and would be processed separately based on classification”.
The rules, as can be observed, contain no specific mention about the wastages that are produced from the Covid-19 -affected patients in home quarantine. Although the humongous and increasing numbers of Covid-19 -affected patients were unimaginable at the time when the rules were first finalised, the current situation certainly demands new guidelines as it can create larger havoc in Bangladesh, one of the most densely-populated countries in the world.
But surprisingly this type of reprehensible act is easy to commit by the immoral and evil-minded people when hospitals become careless and dump their medical wastages without proper safety measures. The masks and gloves are two of the examples of thousands of tonnes medical waste that are poorly disposed of after being used.
Very recently, the police in Gazipur, had explored a disgusting case scenario where a man was nabbed in red-handed and was convicted on charges of recycling used masks and hand gloves that had been collected from several hospitals in that nearby area. Amid huge demand for surgical masks and gloves in the market during this crisis period, the nabbed man collected those from the dumping grounds of hospitals and washed bloodstains with shampoo. Locals unveiled his secret business when he sent those masks and gloves into a local laundry for the final ironing, thus police discovered this heinous act. This was one of the many hiding such facts are happening around us.
Experts warned medical wastages are not like other wastes such as the household or industrial wastages. It can infect one directly through the skin or by ingestion and inhalation with objects like inhalers or ventilating pipes. Many contagious viruses including HIV and Hepatitis (B and C) can easily be generated from such wastes and can harm the ones who do not have the diseases. Germs and viruses, which are antibiotic-resistant (such as the Covid-19 at this point) can easily spread from medical waste.
Disposal of this waste is an environmental threat, as many medical wastes are classified as infectious or hazardous and could potentially lead to the spread of infectious disease like Covid-19 outbreak. The most common danger for humans is the infection which also affects other living organisms in the region. Daily exposure to the waste (landfill) leads to accumulation of harmful substances or microbes in the person’s body.
A report in 1990 by the United State Country Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded that the general public is not likely to be adversely affected by medical waste generated in the traditional healthcare setting. They found, however, that medical waste from those settings may pose an injury and exposure risks via occupational contact with medical waste for doctors, nurses, and janitorial, laundry and refuse workers. Further, there are opportunities for the general public to come into contact medical waste, such as needles used illicitly outside healthcare settings, or medical waste generated via home health care.
The negative impact of improper medical waste disposal on human health is staggering. The potential transmission of infectious diseases from needle stick injury or contamination is a primary risk due to medical illnesses and diseases that may be caused by improper disposal of medical waste.
Improper management of medical waste can have both direct and indirect health consequences for health personnel, community members and on the environment. Indirect consequences in the form of toxic emissions from inadequate burning of medical waste, or the production of millions of used syringes in a period of three to four weeks from an insufficiently well planned mass immunization campaign.
Medical waste is not limited to medical instruments- it includes medicine, waste stored in red biohazard bags, and materials used for patient care, such as cotton and band aids. The most serious effect that medical waste has on our seas is the discharge of poisons into the waters that could then be consumed by ocean life creatures. Toxins would interject into the food chain and eventually reach humans who consume sea creatures. Human exposure to such toxins can stunt human growth development and cause birth defects.
The high volume of plastic use in the medical field also poses a dangerous threat to the environment. In addition to the serious health implications of releasing harmful toxins in the environment from medical waste deposits, introducing this volume of single-use plastics can catalyze the compounding health detriments caused by macro and microplastics.
Several private and public hospitals in the mostly populated Dhaka city have often claimed to follow proper methods to manage the medical wastages. However, case scenarios like the above-mentioned disposable masks and gloves- recycling crimes are turning heads among the hospital authorities to properly manage the medical wastages.
If the massive amount of medical wastages cannot be managed through maintaining proper and adequate guidelines, chances of community-based spreading of Covid-19 can exceed the limit and take more lives in the upcoming days.
(Md. Zillur Rahaman is a Banker and Freelance Contributor. Email : [email protected])
