Determining the Effectiveness of Infectious Waste Management of District Hospitals in Bulacan: A Basis for Infectious Waste Management System

The management of healthcare waste, particularly infectious waste, requires more consideration to avoid the substantial disease burden associated with poor practice, including exposure to infectious agents and toxins that might be encountered by the community and the personnel assigned in the whole process of waste disposal. The study's main objective is to evaluate if the infectious waste management of government hospitals complies with the standard set by the Department of Health (DOH) and to determine workers' knowledge of infectious wastes. A descriptive cross-sectional design was used in the study. A questionnaire was used to obtain information and assess the practices from generation up to transportation of infectious wastes. The target community of the study was the six (6) government hospitals located in the Province of Bulacan. The data was analyzed using inferential statistics, which is a test of hypothesis (one sample T-test). The results indicated that five out of six hospitals comply with the DOH standards with a computed P-value greater than 0.05. The hospitals are compliant, but there are some problems regarding segregation and disposal of hospital waste; preliminary treatment is not always conducted, and some utility personnel only go through a short training; because of this, the researchers provided recommendations that satisfy the guidelines set by the Department of Health.