|
|
02/09/2002
Medical waste disposal in developing
countries
Health care waste
disposal is a complex problem, especially in health systems
with lack of resources. Through a new project in collaboration
with Médecins Sans Frontières, Design for the World wants to
address a small part of it: the safe disposal of contaminated
sharps in small health structures in Africa, Asia and Latin
America.
| The safe and environmentally sound disposal of
health care waste materials is a major challenge, and in rich
countries a complex and resource-intensive infrastructure is
set up to deal with this.
One category of waste
materials are the so-called 'medical sharps', such as needles,
broken glass vials and laboratory slides etc., which pose
clear risks of contamination not only for health staff, but
also for patients and cleaning staff within the health
centres, and for all persons who are exposed to the medical
waste once it leaves the health centre.
Health
structures in poorer countries do not have access to the
methods and infrastructure used in richer countries; and the
fact that many people try to survive by recuperating any
seemingly useful object (without due conscience of the risks
involved) greatly exacerbates the risk of accidental exposure
to a contaminated sharp in those countries.
A global
approach is needed: avoiding as much as possible the creation
of 'contaminated sharps' in the first place (so-called
'primary prevention'), finding safe disposal systems for those
sharps that still have to be used, and educating people about
the risks they pose. The approach would also have to do
something about the reasons why people have to scavenge
potentially dangerous waste to make a living - even when they
are conscious of the risks this entails.
But such an
approach will take time. In the meantime, Design for the World
invites you to participate in finding a practical solution to
a problem faced by small health structures all over the world:
how to temporarily store the used sharps within the health
structure, and how to transport them to a place where they can
be safely disposed of.
Many health structures, and the
organisations that support them, face this problem. We worked
together with Médecins Sans Frontières to define a design
brief outlining the problem and the solutions that are
available now.
We invite you to read the document, and
to send us your ideas and designs for better solutions. Your
work will be evaluated together with experts from Médecins
Sans Frontières, and those ideas that we think may help solve
the problem will be published, and perhaps form the basis for
further development.
The aim of the project is
to provide solutions for health structures that now lack
adequate resources to tackle the problem. Ideas and designs
will be put in the public domain, for free use by any person
or institution.
|
| |
