한국의 의료폐기물 처러실태와 장래문제 = Medical Waste Problem in Korea; Where are we now?

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Medical wastes disposal regulation was initially enacted in 1981 as the Ministry of Health and Social Affaires decree, and has been revised three times since. The regulation is generally applicable for hospitals and similar medical institutions, hence medical laboratories are also included in that category to comply with the regulation in management and control of medical wastes produced by the laboratories. Although many other biohazardous waste products are considered to be disposed from the laboratories every day, much emphasis is taken to the dead embryos or fetuses, sugical organs, disposable syringes and needles, and transfusion sets. It is reported that approximately 35, 000 dead embryos or fetuses are collected throughout the country in a year, and among them, around 20, 000 are supplied to pharmaceutical manufacturers to be used as a component material for albumin and plasmanate production. About 10, 000 of them, not adequate for reuse, are taken to the families and buried following the rite. Large portion of combbustible medical wastes are either processed by the government licensed business firms or by the medical institutions where they have their own incinerators. Some hospitals utilize both means. Ther are ten public crematory facilities with a total of 50 furnaces, and 80 licensed waste products handling firms. 46% of the medical institutions responded to the questionaires have their own incinerators constructed meeting the standard set by the government. Again, 63% of the hopitals with their own incinerators have beds over 300. It means smaller hospitals use more commercial waste disposal firms than larger hospitals. The statistics on the exact quantity of daily medical wastes disposed from the medical institutions are not available for the time beging, though it is roughly estimated that less than 0. 1kg of the medical wastes per hospital bed in a day were handed over to the commercial ·firms and taken care of. Another data collected from 481 medical institutions, mostly clinics and some hospitals, showed that about 1.1kg of medical wastes in a day were taken care of by the commercial firms. Those two figures obtained from the reports are still a way below quantity belonging to similar category shown by some developed countries even though it does not include the medical wastes that are incinerated by the institutions`` own furnaces. It can be summarized that unknown quantity of medical wastes are submerged with potential biohazard without public notice. The future tasks in Korea are to intensify the surveillance on the whereabout of medical wastes to prevent from illegal burial or dumping, more strict enforcement of regulation and extensive education for the medical personnel to let them realize that uncontrolled medical wastes could be life threatening culprit against both the healthy and the sicked as well.