A challenge for waste management from small health care establishments in Bandung city, Indonesia

Abstract

In pursuing their aims of reducing health problems and eliminating potential risks to people's health, health-care services inevitably create waste that may itself be hazardous to health. Indonesia's current health care waste (HCW) management policy covers only the waste from hospitals and clinical laboratories. Thus, there is a need to establish similar standards and procedures of waste management for small health care establishments (HCE) like community health centers (CHC). Though they may generate less waste quantity compared with those from hospitals, the waste management from CHC becomes important due to their broad range health care activities. In the present an attempt is made to analyze the current management of HCW from CHC in Bandung and to propose a framework for the system improvement.