Mary Karugaba
18 November 2008
Kampala — THE health ministry has halted the building of incinerators in hospitals countrywide. The directive followed the collapse of the newly-constructed incinerators at Mbabara, Masaka and Mubende referral hospitals.
An incinerator is a structure used to burn waste materials.
Dr Jacinto Amandua, the commissioner for clinical services, said: "We are now reviewing the design because of the new environmental regulations on incinerators. We have sent a team to Dar-es-salaam to study the new design," he said.
Appearing before the public accounts committee yesterday, Hoima Hospital superintendent Emanuel Moro said the ban had affected many hospitals.
Moro informed the MPs that several hospitals had resorted to 'crude means of disposing of medical waste'.
According to Moro, biological waste was being disposed of in placenta pits.
Dry waste, Moro said, was disposed of in open pits and burned on a daily basis.
"These are the methods recommended by the infection control programme in the absence of an incinerator," he said.
He noted that for three years, Hoima Hospital included the installation of an incinerator in its development plans, but the project could not be undertaken due to lack of funds.
The MPs also heard that the hospital sewage system and sanitary facilities were faulty.
He also said the hospital's operating theatre was small for a referral hospital.
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