By Stanley Onyekwere
Secretary, Health and Human Services, of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Dr. DemolaOnakomaiya, says over 100 health care workers in the Territory are infected with HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, due to poor healthcare waste disposal.
He said over time, poor health care waste management at hospitals in the nation’s capital had been a public concern, and as a result most of the health personnel are prone to HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and so many other infections.
The Secretary disclosed this, while briefing newsmen on the approval of the FCTA to within the next few weeks formulate and come out with FCT Waste Management Policy to holistically manage both solid and liquid wastes within the 8,000 square kilometers of the Territory.
According to Onakomaiya, only about 60 to 70 per cent of hospitals in the FCT had incinerators, which is one of the components of health care waste management.
“Other hospitals resort to the “burn and bury’’ method, saying that in the next two quarters of the year every hospital in the Territory would have at least one incinerator,” he added.
