Philippine E-Journals

Implementation of the Healthcare Waste Management Procedure of a Tertiary Hospital

Jobert C. Porras

Discipline: Health

 

Abstract:

This study investigates the extent of implementation of healthcare waste management of a tertiary hospital and formulates an intervention program. A Likert Rating Scale survey method was used to address the research objectives. A stratified sample of 329 respondents was selected from a population of personnel of a tertiary hospital. Data was collected using survey instrument derived from healthcare waste management procedure of a hospital. Nine respondents were interviewed (key informant interview) using a semi-structured format to provide a between-methods triangulation and verify the result of quantitative part of one of the group of personnel. The study revealed that this hospital met the standard in the implementation of healthcare waste management in all waste categories except with sharps where the implementation exceeds the expected standard. However, healthcare waste management of the hospital is average in implementation as assessed by all hospital staff and minimally implemented when it comes to administrative staff. Moreover, healthcare waste management of most of the waste categories was weakly implemented by the same group. The tertiary hospital implementation of healthcare waste management varied with different hospital staff. The qualitative data, to some extent, offer convergence with the quantitative data which further show that when referring to administrative staff the implementation healthcare waste management procedure was poor. On the basis of the findings of the study, training and awareness program to enhance the implementation of Healthcare Waste Management is highly recommended.