Sierra Leone healthcare waste management plan

The development objective of the Regional Disease Surveillance System Enhancement Project for Africa is to strengthen national and regional cross-sectoral capacity for collaborative disease surveillance and epidemic preparedness in West Africa. Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) in urban areas, unregulated practices by both public, private hospitals and private waste collectors has resulted in dumping of medical waste (infectious and sharps) at municipal dump sites; (2) variations in the composition of waste raises serious issues at the local level which require different approaches with respect to necessary medical waste management procedures to be applied in order to achieve sustainability; (3) the disposal practise for sharps and used medical supplies are incinerated, disposed in pits or in the open, collected by specialized firms, mixed with general waste with the risk of infections at community level, exposure of garbage workers to infection; (4) responsibilities for waste management are not well defined in most Health Care Facilities (HCFs) except in tertiary and secondary HCFs; (6) general public, including children playing with hazardous items that they find in the waste outside the HCF when it is made accessible through improper Health Care Waste Management (HCWM); (7) the dumping of HCW in uncontrolled areas can have a direct environmental effect by contaminating soils and underground waters; and (8) improper burning or incineration of HCW, air can also be polluted causing illnesses to the nearby populations.