As the world generates more and more wastes, hospitals and health centres are no exception.
Medical wastes are generated on daily bases from health care centers which are infectious, contain toxic chemicals and pose contamination risks to both people and the environment.
If patients are to receive health care and recover in safe surroundings, medical wastes must be disposed of safely.
Akinduro Gbenga Andrew, CEO of Agoa Waste Management Company, one of the leading medical waste management company headquartered in Lagos, takes us into the world of Medical waste management.
“Medical wastes are wastes generated from the hospitals. We have 2 stains of wastes generated by the hospital – Domestic and medical waste. Domestic wastes are wastes generated by patients like their food, water bottles, disposable plates, while medical wastes are those generated from treating patients, like needles, cotton wools, infection bottles, plasters etc.”
What are the economic impact of Medical waste managers?
A lot of economic benefits. For insurance, a country that is sick, can the economy grow? The issue with medical wastes is that most governments are not seeing it the way they should see it. They just see it as normal waste, whereas, they are very dangerous. It is the most dangerous waste. So if we don’t tackle medical waste properly, the citizen population will be at risk and if the populace are at risk, your economy is also at risk because it is the people that drives the economy. Take for insurance the issue of Corona virus when it happened, the whole world was at a stand still, nothing was happening because people are sick. Even the issue of Ebola in Lagos then too, imagined it had happened in other states not Lagos. Thank God Lagos State had an healthcare waste management in place to curb it. That thing would have spread if it happened elsewhere in the country because other states are just coming up in terms of Medical waste management. So that’s the impact of managing medical waste properly. When you have a healthy population, the economy will thrive.
How are the medical wastes managed?
Our company manages the medical wastes. We pick those wastes from the hospitals and take them down to incinerator for destruction. The incinerator is an enclosed equipment built specially for such thing. Just like funnex that industries use, but this time around, there’s a standard temperature approval by the World Health Organisation which is around 950-1100° Celsius. So we fire the incinerator to that level before we load in the medical wastes. At that level, no pathogens, bacteria or virus can survive the destruction. When that is done, we have destroyed them all permanently so that they will not contaminate the environment, ground water or constitute a hazard to people in the environment.
What do the waste by-products contain?
We have ashes, some you can still see syringe needles, injection bottles, depending on the type of incinerator. Incinerator with burners from the bottom can melt everything including bottles and
syringes at that temperature levels while incinerators with burners from top or side will not be able to melt everything but will destroy all pathogens, virus it bacteria in those things. Like the one we use, the bottles and syringes won’t break, but will be harmless when taken out because it has been exposed to high level temperature. So we dispose them off at landfills.
How do you make your profit?
The hospitals pay us. We charge the hospitals after weighing their wastes in kilos and they pay.
What are your major challenges?
There are always challenges faced in the line of any job. One of our major challenges is compliance by hospitals to segregate their waste. You still find some hospitals just pack everything together. But with continuous enlightenment and education, we can get there. Almost all hospitals in Lagos is aware and are complying, but other places like Oyo state, we are still having that challenge.
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Governments need to help us in terms of enforcement to mandate people to separate their wastes and not treat health care wastes as general waste. The more they treat it like general waste, there more they endanger the lives of the populace, because if this thing spreads communicable disease to people, there state and country’s economy will be in trouble.
Another challenge we have is manpower. The people working in the industry are few and the rate at which those employed leave is high. People leave because they feel sigmatised, they see it as dirty job. They are ashamed to be associated with the job. I can say about five staffs have left the company within this year alone. They think there’s no future in it. But I always tell them it’s just the way they see it.
As for me, I am proud of what I doing. I always tell people I’m a ‘wastepreneur’. That’s my profession, that’s my calling. I’m not ashamed of my job. But somehow people look down on you when you tell them you’re a waste manager. I am a graduate and I have one of the highest certificate in project management but this is what I’m called to do. This job has taken me to places, I have attended conferences in the U.S. on this job.
Is there any government policy affecting your business?
In the area of policy making, Lagos already had policies in place that’s making it easy for us. But other states don’t have. We are even the ones trying to create for them. For instance here in Lagos, we don’t have problem with handling medical wastes because the government also go around to check waste management practice in hospitals and those that are not handling their wastes properly gets fined. So it makes them cooperate and do the right things. We still want government to still help to ensure total compliance as few hospitals still don’t comply with the separation of waste.
What inspired you into the business?
I’ve always wanted to do the business since I was young, like while I was in secondary school. I’ve planned my life towards such things, so when I finished university, I just worked in a place for 3 years
and I started this business. It’s just like a calling for me, that’s the way I see it.
How did you cope with the great of infection?
I’m an engineering student. I studied agric engineering. I already understood health safety and all that. Waste management was also pay off what we were taught. So I Know that when you follow process, the issue of infection will not be there. I always tell my staffs, don’t eat inside the waste van, go and eat outside and come back. Those little little safety instructions are very important. And for the past 12-15 years, we have never had any issue with me or any of my staffs.
How do you hope to end the stigmatization associated with the business?
We have a foundation that trains people. Our objective is to set up a health care waste management system in every state in the country. So we have started training people in Ibadan, we’ve been able to raise awareness there, we’ve raised the economic value of those people doing it compared to what they’re earning before elsewhere. So that’s what we do. When we enter a state, in as much as the government gives us free hand to do the job for them, we train the citizens, bring all stakeholders together and let them know why we need to do this.
We just need the governments to help us enlighten the wider population on the dangers of abandoning the healthcare waste sector. Government should help enlighten people that the job is safe. After all, Nigerians travel abroad to do these things to survive, but why won’t they do it for their country.
