Qualitaive study of the medical waste management in selected hospitals in Yerevan

Abstract

Medical waste is a growing problem in the world and in Armenia. Health care services, while working to reduce health problems, inadvertently create waste products, which may themselves be hazardous to human health and the environment. People at risk are hospital staff, patients, and those outside the hospital who handle such waste or are exposed to it as a consequence of careless management. According to the estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO), the proportion of hazardous waste in the hospital waste stream is between 10 and 25 percent. This waste contains health risks/threats such as M. tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C. Poor management and improper discarding of medical waste in landfills lead to pollution of the environment with hazardous material, such as microbiological agents, toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, radioactive isotopes, and mercury. To date, no studies of medical waste management have been conducted in Armenia. Therefore it is proposed to conduct a qualitative research in sex selected Yerevan hospitals and provide an answer to the question: What is the status of medical waste management practices in Yerevan hospitals? The proposed research will be performed using two data collection techniques: 1) formal, focused, semi-structured key informant interviews including the use of questionnaire and 2) unstructured, direct, focused observations of the six facilities and their surrounding grounds. A preliminary pilot study substantiated the need for the proposed study. Data analysis will be conducted using the statistical package, “ATLASti”, a program especially developed for qualitative research. Results will be used to generate professional and political actions and changes. The overall estimated budget composes twelve thousand six hundred and eighty four US dollars ($ 12,684).