The International Federation of Medical Waste ISWA has announced that worldwide corona-contaminated medical waste increased by between 30% and 50% during the beginning of the first half of the year.
The Tunisian country was not isolated from them. The report of the Court of Accounts revealed that the public sanatorium had violated the criteria for the disposal of hazardous wastes, which amounted to 8,000 tons.
Hazardous Medical Wastes and their Clarification are at the Heart of the Law
Chapter 2 of Ordinance No. 2745 of 2008, concerning the regulation of the conditions and methods for the disposal of wastes from industrial and health activities, defines them as any different production, transfer or use of substances or products in health institutions and, in general, any goods disposed of or intended for disposal resulting from diagnostic, follow-up or preventive, curative or palliative activities in the field of human medicine.
Medical wastes described as hazardous are derived from the residue of substances used to examine, diagnose and care for patients, whether within the health facility. They include needles, syringes, cotton, residue of blood-contaminated samples, out-of-patient liquids, pharmacy, chemical and radioactive waste, surgical and other remnants of surgery, which are placed in yellow bags after screening and kept in special coolers at the hospital and at a controlled temperature.
Health Risks of Medical Waste
These wastes represent a significant health risk and include infectious waste (15% -25% of total health care waste), including acute tool waste (1%), waste of body parts (1%), chemical or pharmaceutical waste (3%), radioactive and toxic waste of broken cells or thermometers (less than 1%)
In that connection, the Chairman of the Committee on Health and Social Affairs, Ayashi Zammal, stated that the report of the Accounting Service on private sanatoriums revealed that large quantities of medical waste were disposed of by public waste, resulting in numerous and dangerous diseases.
According to him, 80% of the waste for blood centers is classified as ”fatal” for serious and infectious diseases.
In the same context, it was explained that 53% of these centres and sanatoriums are not contracted to hazardous waste transport and treatment centers.
Zammal added that the latter contributes to the spread of infectious diseases such as viral hepatitis, fungal tuberculosis, SARS, skin infection, AIDS, cancer, and many others.
Ayashi Zammal denounced the judicial pursuit in this regard, calling for the state’s necessary intervention to eradicate this phenomenon, which has spread since the beginning of the covid crisis, but the judiciary did not intervene significantly in spite of the numerous complaints in several regions, and added that the absence of political will is what aggravated the situation.
