The Municipal Director of Health Service for Sefwi Wiawso Municipal District in the Western North Region, Mr. Francis Boakye Takyi, has said the waste bins provided at the vaccination centres will help to prevent littering, apart from taking care of the medical waste that will be generated.
He was happy that Zoomlion Ghana Limited was at the forefront of the medical waste management at the vaccination centres, providing free bins and bin liners for the collection of metal waste, cotton wool and other types of waste.
“The bins have been provided at the CHPs compounds and what Zoomlion does is to pick all waste items from the hospitals,” he said.
Mr. Boakye Takyi made the statement while speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a vaccination exercise at his directorate on Thursday, September 2, 2021.
He was very optimistic that Zoomlion will do a good job by safely disposing of the medical waste in the various centres in the region.
However, he pleaded with the government to supply them with more vaccines to be able to attend to more people in the municipality.
He explained that Ghana Health Service (GHS) took delivery of the medical items to help facilitate the second jabs of the AstraZeneca vaccine, adding that a number of persons were trained specifically for the exercise.
“With the vaccination of the second jab of the AstraZeneca, what we do is to ask those coming for the jabs to produce a card that was issued to them along with their voter’s ID card when they took the first jab. And once they produce that they are given the second jab,” Mr Boakye Takyi said.
The Coordinator of the Expanded Programme for Immunisation, Ms. Victoria Ayog-yam, was full of praise for Zoomlion and its partners for helping in the safe disposal of general and medical waste products at the centres.
“Zoomlion picks up the waste every day from the various vaccination centres, the cotton wool waste are separated from syringes.
…and their workers wear protective gears like medical gloves and medicated nose masks for safety reasons,” she noted.
According to her, the vaccination exercise on Tuesday, September 1, 2021, saw over 100 people turning out to be vaccinated
According to the WHO, vaccination waste predominantly comprises used needles, syringes, and blood-stained cotton is classified as potentially infectious waste. In this regard, the vaccination waste needs to be managed with hazardous waste management protocols.
To this end, vaccination waste needs to be managed with hazardous waste management protocols.
It is in line with the above that Zoomlion medical waste teams have positioned waste bins with colour-coded liners in all vaccination centres across the country, serving as temporary storage containers for segregated waste.
The sharp and other infectious waste materials are then collected and transported by specialized medical waste trucks deployed across the country.
The collected waste will then be treated at centralised medical waste treatment facilities through sterilization and shredding. At this point, the waste is considered safe for final disposal.
Thus, the medical waste teams of Zoomlion are collaborating with technical experts from the Schools of Hygiene in Ghana to provide medical waste management services to all vaccination centres across the country.
