COVID-19 Waste Management Strategy: Hamad Medical Corporation Experience

Abstract

Background: As the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients has rapidly increased around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a global pandemic in March 2020.1 The pandemic created a global crisis affecting all countries, business sectors, and citizens around the world in their everyday lives.2 Qatar's national policies and strategies focus on protecting the lives and the recovery of livelihoods. In line with this and to minimize the adverse impact on people's health and the environment, all types of wastes needed to be properly managed 3, especially at the time of a pandemic when everything might be contaminated. Methods: The Environmental Safety Section (ESS) under the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Department conducted a series of meetings with Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) waste contractor and concerned departments to discuss the proper management of COVID-19 wastes generated from isolation and quarantine facilities. ESS staff provided training for nursing and housekeeping staff on the proper COVID-19 waste management from segregation, packaging, labeling, collection, and transport, and to strictly implement the System-Wide Incident Command Center (SWICC) memo.3Results: There was an increase in COVID-19 wastes from March to May 2020, with the highest amount recorded in the month of May as shown in Figure 1 due to the increase in COVID-19 patients, new COVID-19 facilities, improper segregation, and lack of training for the new staff and contractors. Conclusion: ESS-OHS collaborated with the COVID-19 management facilities for the proper waste collection and transportation. All applied strategies were effective and helped gradually to reduce the waste generated starting from August 2020.