Piles of medical waste greet patients reaching the front gates of Mansoura International Hospital— which contains the largest medical waste incinerator in Mansoura— causing many of the area’s inhabitants to develop diseases, according to medical reports.

“Incinerating waste directly in the open air causes asthma and lung cancer due to resulting gases,” said Dr. Khalid Abdurrahman, a doctor in the hospital.

Piles of medical waste greet patients reaching the front gates of Mansoura International Hospital— which contains the largest medical waste incinerator in Mansoura— causing many of the area’s inhabitants to develop diseases, according to medical reports.

“Incinerating waste directly in the open air causes asthma and lung cancer due to resulting gases,” said Dr. Khalid Abdurrahman, a doctor in the hospital.

Residents who live in close proximity to the hospital are aware of the hazards to their health, not to mention their quality of life. “The bad smell coming from the hospital’s incinerator harms us and causes health problems and chest allergies,” said Mamdouh Sayed. “The permanent presence of waste near our homes harms our children,” he said.

What is supposed to happen. . .

According to internationally recognized agreements, to which Egypt is a signatory, and to which the Ministry of Health is tasked to implement, medical facilities are required to categorize and dispose of medical waste into three categories, depending on their degrees of danger. “The first, least dangerous group includes paper, cardboard, etc, and is put into brown bags,” explained Saad Saber, Director of Incineration Plants in Dakahlia Directorate of Health. “The second group, which is more dangerous, includes cotton, bandages, human organs and residues of deliveries; they are put in red plastic bags. The third group, which is the most dangerous, includes syringes and medical needles; they are put in a tightly and safely-sealed red containers.”

According to Saber, the dangerous waste is incinerated separately. There are nine medical waste incineration plants (MIWPs) in Dakahlia Governorate: in Belqas, Talkha, the International Hospital, Mit Ghamr, Shubra Hur, El Senbellawein, Mit Salsil and Abu Al-Akhdar, two of which are out of service because they do not meet specifications. The remaining seven handle the medical waste of thousands of private and governmental medical facilities.

What actually happens. . .

According to Dr. Ibrahim Zayyat, one of the major causes of these medical waste piles is that the cars meant to transport waste to MWIPs do not come regularly to the governmental hospitals.

A worker in Iman Transport Company, which is contracted by the Directorate of Health to move medical waste, spoke under anonymity and confirmed that the waste problem is inevitable: “Dakahlia Governorate has only seven cars, which are not enough to move its waste. That leads poisonous waste to pile in hospitals and to be disposed of like ordinary waste, which is a great danger.”

Environmental disaster

This situation forces hospitals and medical facilities to dispose of their waste haphazardly. A clerk in Dakahlia Directorate of Environment Affairs explained that a year and a half earlier, his directorate conducted a campaign, which later detected an environmental disaster threatening the lives of five million people in Sandub area in Dakahlia, where 2,040 kilograms of medical waste were spotted while being moved from the University Hospital to Sandub’s Public Waste Dump. This included blood and pathological waste resulting from deliveries, surgical operations and amputations.

“Despite regular inspections and imposing punishments of imprisonment and fines, many cases are detected every year, the latest of which was in Al-Matariyyah Public Hospital where a nurse was referred to the legal affairs department for disposing of poisonous waste in the dumps of regular waste,” said Saad Saber.

Hepatitis

Adel Abdurrazek, a 59-year-old janitor in the Transport and Road Department, which is in the vicinity of a medical waste incinerator said: “Every ten minutes, a medical waste car passes by me on its way to the dump. I started working here 27 years ago; I was young and healthy but due to constant exposure to waste, I developed hepatitis and this is the case of many other workers. Four workers die every year and the rest are waiting in line.”

Polluted needles are the reason

Dr. Wael Khafaji, a former member of Mansoura Local Council ascribed the high rate of hepatitis viruses to unsafe handling of medical waste. “Many companies reuse syringes and dialysis filters, contributing to spread of viruses,” he said without confirming whether breathing incinerator gases led to serious diseases.   

Waste and children’s toys

Not all medical waste mixed with ordinary one is incinerated since some is recycled without cautions. Shantytown inhabitants work in collecting scrap and sorting waste. “We collect scrap from waste and get harmed because of the medical waste. We collect plastic items from private hospitals and sell them per kilos as scrap to dealers in the village of Mit Asas,” said Sayed Ibrahim.

Sometimes, medical waste such as cotton is used in manufacturing children’s toys. “Illegal unlicensed factories are spotted in poor areas adjacent to the shantytown and Muhammad Fathi Street. One source at the Dakahlia Security Directorate claimed: They remanufacture scrap, including medical waste and turn it into children’s toys.”