Biomedical Waste Management: Residents ’Knowledge and Training

Biomedical waste (BMW) is generated during diagnosis of patients, immunisation or treatment. The absence of proper waste management, lack of awareness about the health hazards from BMW, insufficient finances and human resources and poor control of waste disposal are the most critical problem with healthcare waste. Healthcare workers should have the proper knowledge about waste management to prevent infections.

With this background the study was planned to know about the knowledge amongst the residents working in a tertiary care hospital at Nagpur about waste management, training was given for proper waste management and its effectiveness was studied.

A total of 70 residents participated in this study. Prior to the training, their knowledge about hospital waste management was not satisfactory; so they were educated by training sessions like didactic lectures, followed by demonstration of actual waste disposal in their working areas by dividing them into different groups. Six months after training the residents were asked to solve the questionnaire and responses were noted.

From the responses, it was seen that training of residents is effective as more than 90% residents have retained the knowledge regarding proper waste disposal.

Field-based training is effective in inculcating knowledge and skills among residents about BMW management.