Environment
Ministry set to cut down hospital solid waste
  • | laodong, dtinews.vn | August 17, 2019 08:51 AM
The Ministry of Health has proposed measures to cut down on the amount of solid waste used at local hospitals.


 

Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien speaks at a conference about reducing solid waste in the health sectoron August 16


The problem was discussed at an online conference about reducing solid waste in the health sector on August 16. Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha said as Vietnam experienced socio-economic growth, the amount of hospital waste increased sharply with more complicated components and a large amount of plastic waste.

Hospitals and other health facilities discharged about 600 tonnes of solid waste each day, 10% of which are harmful. Since the number of equipment and hospitals increases, harmful waste also increased. Plastic waste can be created from daily activities and researching process.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said over 700,000 aquatic organisms have been badly affected by plastic wastes. According to the European Commission, about 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste was produced by 2018. 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic waste has been thrown into the ocean each year.

Most of the plastic waste discharged from hospitals are nylon bags and disposable plastic products. Tien has called on leaders of localities departments of health to act to improve the problem.

Both medical staff, patients and family members must be more aware of the harms of plastic waste. Units that achieve outstanding results in dealing with plastic wastes should be awarded as encouragement.

The sources of the rubbish must be reviewed and authorities must have plans to reduce the amount of plastic waste at medical facilities. The usage of plastic waste should be one of the criteria for hospital evaluation.

The authorities must also monitor and inspect the facilities regularly and report the results to the departments of health and the Ministry of Health.

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