Hospitals Urge DoH to Work for Release of 100 M Fund for Health

Manila — Hospitals all over the country, together with HCWH-Southeast Asia, recently sent a letter addressed to Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III urging him "to find the most expeditious way" to see the release of the P100 million budget for autoclaves for the treatment of infectious medical waste.

In the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 200z8, P100 million was appropriated for autoclaves for medical waste treatment in the budget approved for the Department of Health (DOH). However, to date, the project is awaiting House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Secretary Junie Cua's and Speaker Prospero Nograles's endorsements for the fund's release by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

According to Ronnel Lim, HCWH-SEA Anti-Incineration Program Officer, "The Philippine Congress has responded to the need for the treatment of infectious medical waste by appropriating the money for it in 2008."

"The DOH should actively work to access the fund that has been made available to it."

Autoclave uses steam under pressure to treat cultures and stocks, sharps, materials contaminated with blood and limited amounts of fluid, isolation and surgery wastes, laboratory wastes (excluding chemical wastes), and soft waste.

Since the use of incinerators to dispose medical wastes has been banned by the 1999 Clean Air Act, autoclave is among the accepted methods to treat waste. According to a World Health Organization report, waste produced by health care facilities carries a higher potential for infection and injury than any other kind of waste.

"DOH's National Center for Health Facility Development has already identified the hospitals that could host the autoclaves that could treat the wastes of several hospitals within a catchment area," said Lim.

Case in point is Baguio City. In the Hospital Waste Assessment Project (HWAP) report released by HCWH-SEA, the approximated volume of infectious waste produced in a month in seven Baguio hospitals is 9,708 kg. A 24 x 34 autoclave treating 50 kg of waste per hour and running for 10 hours a day can treat 17,500 kg of infectious wastes in a month.
"The amount of infectious wastes produced by the hospitals is much smaller than the potential capacity of the autoclave. Thus the services may even be extended to nearby hospitals," said Lim.

Health Care Without Harm is an international coalition of more than 500 organizations in 53 countries, working to transform the health care sector worldwide, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment. Visit the HCWH website for more information.