The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) would within the next few weeks formulate Waste Management Policy to manage both solid and liquid wastes within the territory.
Minister of the FCT, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed, disclosed this on Monday during an FCT Executive Meeting in his residence.
He said prior to that, the FCTA, in 2012, inaugurated the Infection Prevention and Control Committee and thus the FCT Health & Human Services Secretariat created Environmental Health Unit at the Public Health Department being manned by licensed environmental health officers.
The minister said the policy would enable the FCTA to manage various forms of waste generated in the capital city and in the six area councils.
According to him, if the government gets waste management right, cases of diseases and attendant effects on the residents can be minimised.
He said: “Waste handlers and scavengers risk contracting diseases like HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, and possible outbreak of other diseases which can ordinarily be stemmed by effective healthcare waste management.
To further prevent disease infection in FCT from such waste, he recalled that modern incinerators and ash pits for the disposal of health care waste had been provided in all the secondary healthcare facilities, while the primary healthcare facilities practised the
“Burn and Bury” system of waste disposal.
Meanwhile, the FCT Exco has also approved the FCT Healthcare Waste Management Guideline to specifically tackle waste from healthcare institutions in the FCT.
The exco noted, with concern, that the resolution of the 50th National Council on Health in Abuja in 2006, which observed that healthcare waste management posed problem for healthcare delivery.
They said the goal of the new guideline “is to strengthen healthcare management systems in both public and private institutions in an appropriate and sustainable manner within the FCT.”
Addressing newsmen, after the executive meeting, Secretary, FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat, Dr. Demola Onakomaiya, said the policy would ensure that waste produced from health institutions had proper encoding in order to avoid the spread of diseases amongst the health workers.
According to him, at least 100 medical attendants have been infected with several diseases like HIV and Hepatitis through the waste generated in the hospitals.
