The Federal Government has procured and installed medical waste incinerators in some university teaching hospitals and the federal medical centres (FMC) across the country.
The permanent secretary, Ecological Fund Office, Goni Musa Sheikh, disclosed this at a public enlightenment and sensitization workshop on medical waste incinerator project held at the FMC in Keffi, Nasarawa State.
Sheikh said the development was in line with the federal government’s determination to bring modern health care services to the grassroots. He said the waste incinerators would help curtail infectious diseases caused by inappropriate disposal of medical wastes. He said: “Apart from the intervention in the medical waste, the federal government is also intervening in the area of plastic waste management.
“In recognition of the indiscriminate disposal of plastic waste materials, particularly shopping bags and pure water sachets and the imminent danger to the environment, the federal government, through Ecological Fund Office (EFO) and the federal ministry of environment embarked on the establishment of multi-purpose plastic recycling plants in 26 selected cities in the country.”
He further informed that, when completed, the project would handle the volume of waste generated in the country and ensure a cleaner and healthier environment. Giving his remarks, chief medical director, FMC Keffi, Dr. Joshua Giyan, said the hospital considered itself lucky to be one of the beneficiaries of the federal government intervention project. He said the choice of the hospital as one of the beneficiaries was because it offers excellent services to its patients. He said the incinerator would protect both patients and staff of the hospital from picking environmental associated infection as a result of improper disposal of medical wastes.
He said although when its comes to waste disposal, the hospital had outsourced the service to a company and the company was doing a good job, with the new machine it can only do greater work. He promised that the incinerator would be deployed to ensure that the wastes were properly disposed to ensure a healthy environment.
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