Improper Excreta Disposal Facilities

This study examines public health effects of improper hospital waste disposal. Primary data was collected from households residing in the area. 124 copies of well structured questionnaires were administered to the households. Questions were related to socio-economic characteristics of households and health effects of improper hospital waste management.

Data collected were analyzed using descriptive methods. The study result reveals that the disposal of untreated hospital wastes poses an environmental threat and public health risk.Indiscriminate disposal of untreated hospital waste is often the cause for the spread of several infectious diseases. It is also responsible for hospital acquired diseases to the health care personnel who handle these wastes at the point of generation. Apart from the above, a good amount of hospital wastes such as disposable syringes, infusion bags, I.

V. Fluid bottles etc. Are picked up by rag pickers and are recycled back into the market without any disinfection. It is important, therefore, to implement proper environmentally safe mode of disposing hospital wastes.Keywords: Public health, Hospital waste, Infectious diseases, Waste disposal.

INTRODUCTION There are potential risks to environment and health from improper handling of hospital wastes. There are specific risks in handling wastes from hospitals and clinics. For the general public, the main risks to health are indirect and arise from the breeding of disease vectors, primarily flies and rats. One estimate shows that some 5.

2 million people (including 4 million children) die each year from wasteland diseases.Globally, the amount of hospital waste *Corresponding author E-mail: ezravivan@yahoo. Mom, Tell: +2348032880342, +2348097601269 generated will double by the year 2000 and quadruple by year 2025" (Haze, 1994 Cater et. Al.

1999). A large part of hospital waste usually consists of clinical and non-clinical waste, these wastes can, therefore, be broadly classified into solid wastes, and liquid waste (wastewater). Both are important source of physical and natural environmental degradation and constitute a health hazard.The soil associated or under the disposed wastes is one of the main reservoirs of microbial life, and contaminated water contains pathogenic microorganisms, which are causative agents of different types of disease.

Proper management of hospital waste is critical to the health and well-being of urban and rural residents (World Bank 2003). Inadequate management of hospital waste in most areas of developing countries leads to 024]. Rest. Environ.

Sic. Toxic. Table 1 .Neighborhoods and households sampled in the study area SINO Neighborhood Number of Households 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Total Angular MUSM Angular Arguing Angular Bay D-one Zonked Central Angular Mall. Sills Angular Duke Angular Ram Angular Chaw Angular Mission Angular Tanbark Raman GUID Angular Narrow Angular Swam Raman Dali Angular Ayah Angular Mast 73 239 146 277 362 69 21 191 186 268 121 81 97 160 75 2490 Sampled 18 124 Source: Field survey 2011 problems that impair human and animal health and ultimately result in economic, environmental and biological losses (Shortly et al. 2008).

The inter-relationship between public health effects, perceived or real, and the range of hospital waste management processes regulated is an important cause of concern to the public at large today. There have been an increasing number of epidemiological research reports inking a range of ill-health outcomes to hospital waste management installations. These studies include childhood cancers, birth abnormalities and liver cancers associated with incinerators and with landfill facilities.The production of hospital waste in Nigeria in the foreseeable future is inevitable, so hospital waste management is a necessity. Given this fact, there is a need for an overview of the current state of knowledge regarding the public health impacts from hospital waste management, and a comparative assessment of the risks and benefits of the variety of available hospital waste management options The improper management of hospital waste causes serious environmental problems in terms of air, water and land pollution.

The nature of pollutants can be classified as biological, chemical and radioactive.Environment problems can arise from the mere generation of medical waste and from the process of handling, treatment and disposal. This paper analyses the effects of improper medical waste management and recommends proper means for safeguarding health care workers. In Nigeria, hospital waste was largely mismanaged in the past, mainly because the sector did not know what to o with the waste.

The procedures for safe waste handling were not adhered to; for example, there were deficiencies in designation and identification of infectious waste, segregation, packaging and storage, as well as in transport procedures.More than 90% of the hospital waste generated in Nigeria is directly disposed on land in an unsatisfactory manner (Vivian et al. , 2011) AIM AND OBJECTIVES The thrust of this paper is to examine the public health effects of improper hospital waste management in Zonked district of Cannon-Kate Local Government Area of Sudan State, Nigeria. Objectives I. To examine the waste management practices in hospitals and the waste handling and disposal practices by hospitals in the study area. It.

To assess the effects of hospital waste on the health of hospital workers and the general public. Ii. To assess the level of awareness of health workers and the general public on the effects of improper hospital waste management. Study area Zonked District, the study area is one of the districts of Legwork et al. 025 Cannon-Kate Local Government Area and is the administrative headquarters of Cannon-Kate Local Government Area of Sudan State and is one of the Local Government that makes up Southern Sudan Senatorial District. MATERIALS AND METHODS The method of data collection was through the use of applicable sampling techniques.

Since the research population is made up of the households in the study area, since the research population is made up of people whose health has been impacted upon by improper hospital waste disposal, these are the residents of the study area, the researchers carried out a stratified sampling to delimit the area of study into neighborhoods. There are seventeen (17) neighborhoods in the study area. The area was terrified based on the neighborhoods in the area. The neighborhoods were then delimited using the simple random sampling technique to select various households for the research work.

From these neighborhoods, the study samples were taken. Information on the number of households in the various neighborhoods of the study area was obtained from the National Population Commission (NP) of Cannon-Kate Local Government Secretariat. The breakdown on how the samples were taken from the households in the seventeen neighborhoods that makes up Zonked District is shown in Table 1. The study chose a sampling size of 5% for the households in the study area which is 124 households out of a total of 2490 households in the study area.

The sample size of 5% was chosen for convenience due to the limited time available to carry out the research. Oral interviews were also conducted with health workers in all hospitals within the study area and sanitary officers in the Local Government Secretariat. And a checklist was used to find out the waste disposal facilities present in all hospitals within the study area and to find out if hospitals within the study area treat their waste before disposing. Simple statistical methods was used to analyze the data obtained.This will include the use of both descriptive and inferential statistics in the summarization of the data into charts, tables, graphs and percentages to be obtained in the course of the research work.