Abstract

MATA SUBERO, Ana María; REYES GIL, Rosa E.  and  MIJARES SEMINARIO, Rodrigo. Manejo de desechos hospitalarios en un hospital tipo IV de Caracas, Venezuela. INCI [online]. 2004, vol.29, n.2, pp.89-93. ISSN 0378-1844.

Medical wastes comprise the different varieties of waste generated in health establishments and, in view of their pathogenic potential and the inefficiency of its management, represent a health risk. A system for the internal management of the medical wastes in a Type IV Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, was designed and validated. The current situation was diagnosed, based on Decree 2218 of the Republic of Venezuela; a medical waste management system was proposed and validated. The results indicate that the hospital complies with less than the 50% of the existing legal regulation. The validation of the proposed waste management system revealed that the hospital generated at the beginning of the study a total of 724.06kg/day of waste, of which 181.33kg/day corresponded to infectious waste. After implementation of the proposed system the total quantity of infectious waste diminished to 129.98kg/day. It was verified that this type of system, diminishes significantly the quantity of infectious waste, reducing processing costs and the risks for the hospital population and for the public in general. For the establishment of this type of system, all the hospital community must be incorporated, since without the aid of all the personnel, the efforts to diminish the risk that this waste represents for health would be useless.

Keywords : Auditoría de Cumplimiento; Desechos Hospitalarios; Sistema de Manejo de Desechos.