Medical wastes characterisation in healthcare institutions in Mauritius

A waste audit carried out at these sites revealed that approximately 10% of solid wastes was hazardous in nature, consisting mainly of infectious, pathological and chemical wastes. The average amount of hazardous wastes per patient per day was found to be 0.072 kg at Jeetoo hospital, 0.091 kg at SSRN hospital and 0.179 kg at the clinic. The amount of hazardous wastes generated as a function of the number of occupied beds was found to follow a relationship of type y = 0.0006x − 0.19, where y was the amount of hazardous wastes generated per bed per day and x was the number of occupied beds. The waste quantifying process also revealed that at SSRN Hospital, 0.654 m3 of water was being consumed per patient per day and the amount of wastewater produced was 500 m3/day. Further analysis revealed that the wastewater was polluting with chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD5), total suspended solids (TSS) and coliform content well above permissible limits.