Expert Warns On Improper Waste Disposal

A family physician, Dr
Adeyeye Arigbabuwo, has said that improper medical waste disposal by healthcare workers could lead to infertility, cancer and environmental pollution.
Speaking  at the 8th Lagos Healthcare Waste Management Summit organised by the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) in Lagos, with the theme,“Healthcare Waste Management Policy in Preventive Health.
Arigbabuwo, who is the chairman, Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria, Lagos Chapter, called for training and retraining of health workers on proper management of waste.
“The medical waste is not all about the waste, but also the complications that can arise from improper waste management. And one of its greatest complications can be environmental pollution. Apart from cancer disease, you can also have pollution that can be inhaled, or that can directly or indirectly affect the process of sperm production in men.
“Once this happens, fertilisation becomes a challenge and this can also lead to dysfunctional families.
“Nobody will trace these health problems to our initial bad attitude toward improper disposal of our wastes,’’ he said.
Arigbabuwo advised health workers to work as a team to ensure that waste generated at the health facilities were properly disposed of.
Also speaking,  a consultant paediatrician at the Lagoon Hospital, Lagos, Dr Mowa Falase, said continuous sensitisation, enforcement and maintaining standards would improve people’s attitude toward proper disposal of waste.
She said there was need to start sensitising people at early age about waste segregation and recycling.
“By the time they get to clinical training stage, they would have had the concept. “So introducing the concept of segregation of clinical waste will not be foreign to them,” Falase said.
In her remarks, a consultant family physician, Dr Angela Esoimeme, said waste management involved adequate manpower, equipment and finance to get the job done.
Esoimeme, who lectures at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, said there was need for training and retraining of health workers to achieve proper waste management.
“Health workers have been trained and retrained, but some are not amenable to change which is a challenge.
“We can only appeal to people’s good side to do what is right to ensure a safe environment for a healthy living,’’ she said.