Kon Tum province meets environmental standards when treating solid medical waste

Sustainable Consumption

02/10/2018

With the aim of ensuring that medical facilities in Kon Tum province meet environmental standards when treating solid medical waste, Kon Tum province will deploy region-based solid medical waste collection and concentrated waste treatment. This will help treating such type of waste thoroughly and preventing epidemic spread and environmental degradation.

Kon Tum province will have 2 region-based concentrated solid waste treatment centers. The first centre which will be located at Ngoc Hoi General Hospital has its investment capital of more than VND10 billion. It is capable of treating 160 kg of medical hazardous waste collected from 10 medical facilities and general clinics in Ngoc Hoi, Dak To, Tu Mo Rong and Dak Glei district, Kon Tum province a day.

The second center will be located at Kon Tum Traditional Medicine Hospital. Its investment capital includes VND13.4 billion which is a loan from the World Bank and a part of reciprocal capital from the state budget. The main items of the project include storage house, solid medical waste treatment house, A-type, D-type waste isolation tanks, ash isolation tank and medical waste disinfection equipment integrated with microwave technology with a capacity of 280 kg including all medical hazardous waste collected from 18 medical facilities, hospitals and private clinics in Kon Tum City and neighboring districts such as Dak Ha, Kon Ray, Kon Plong, Sa Thay (in Kon Tum province).

After being sorted, all medical hazardous waste are treated by disinfection equipment integrated with microwave and crushing technology in the same treatment chamber. Medical hazardous waste is disinfected at high temperatures to meet environmental standards. After that, waste whose volume reduces nearly by 70% will continue to be treated with common solid waste.

The both two projects were approved by the Kon Tum Provincial Authorities in the Environmental Protection Plan in March 2018. They are invested by the Kon Tum Provincial Health Department with the goal of managing and thoroughly treating medical waste, preventing epidemic spread, preventing environmental degradation and ensuring provincial health facilities meet environmental standards when treating solid medical waste.

It is known items of the region based - medical waste treatment centers have been completed but the provincial authorities have not announced results on assessment of their environmental standard compliance yet. Building two region based - medical solid waste treatment centers at Kon Tum Traditional Medicine Hospital and Ngoc Hoi General Hospital will contribute to managing and thoroughly treating waste, prevendting disease spread and environmental degradation, improving the environmental quality of medical facilities in accordance with prescribed standards.

It is expected the two mentioned-above waste treatment centers will be put into operation in September 2018.

By Office of Cleaner Production and Sustainable Production and Consumption