MINISTER ADVOCATES POLYMERS FOR DECONTAMINATION OF FLUIDS IN HOSPITALS

By NBF News

http://www.nigerianbestforum.com/blog/?attachment_id=121862 The Minister of Health, Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu, has advocated for the use of innovative polymers for safe decontamination of body fluids in hospitals across the country.

He said it is important for stakeholders in the health sector to utilise innovative solutions to decontaminate Nigeria's Federal and State Hospitals' bio-hazardous spill as they become available

The minister gave this call recently in Abuja at a one-day symposium on the use of World's Leading Polymeric Decontamination Technology, for Chemical and Radioactive Spill, organised by the Federal Ministry of Health.

The symposium galvanized the stakeholders in the health sector with a unique opportunity to positively impact the condition of controlling bio-hazardous waste in our federal and state hospitals.

In his keynote address, the minister who also declared the symposium open noted that it was no secret that the decontamination and disposal of chemical and radioactive spill remains a major challenge of  the nation's federal and state hospitals.

He particularly stressed the danger that bio-hazardous spill, constantly generated by the nation's hospitals (human blood, human blood components, products made from blood, urine, vomit and other bodily fluids) pose to public health is not properly disposed.

Chukwu noted that the decontamination and disposal of these toxic bio-hazardous spills require adequate decontamination techniques, failure of which will result in the break out of health hazards which may be detrimental to public health.

The Minister of Health pointed out that the current methods of decontaminating chemical and radioactive spill rely heavily on high pressure cleaning with large volumes of water.

He mentioned that these methods are not sustainable for our public health due to some of the following reasons, including, toxic and hazardous effluent (waste water),  scarcity of fresh water resources, large volumes of effluent and inefficacy (medical radioisotopes are merely shifted and not decontaminated)

The minister posited at the symposium that recent trends on state of fresh water supply across the world reveal that, for any bio-hazardous spill control procedure to be sustainable, it must rely less on soaps, water or acids.

Chukwu told the stakeholders that it has become necessary that the status quo of  the nation's medical radioactive and chemical spill decontamination methods should be subjected to a much needed review.