Towards a sustainable supply chain: contribution to hospital waste management in an Algerian hospital

Abstract

The object of research is medical waste management. Healthcare activities protect health, cure patients and save lives. However, they generate waste that is harmful to public health and the environment. As a result, the management of this healthcare waste is becoming increasingly important in the field of public health and the environment. One of the most problematic places is, poor management of these issues that can put healthcare workers, medical waste workers, patients and their families, and the entire population at risk. On the other hand, poor treatment or inadequate disposal of this waste can also cause risks. From now on, the rational elimination of this pollution is one of the essential conditions for respecting hygiene rules, not only inside establishments, but also in the general environment. In this unfavorable context, we are trying through this contribution to achieve adequate management using reverse logistics practices with the main objective of resolving healthcare waste management problems while taking into account the reality of things in situ. For this purpose, an approach guided by data, carried out directly in the field, by direct contact with the different categories of health personnel interviewed, through findings, observations, audits, questionnaire and knowledge of the causes was used. This approach is based on the audit of compliance with the supply chain in the management of hospital waste in the different departments of the Constantine University Hospital (Algeria). As a result of the research it is shown that the situation is very poor given that the logistics chain is completely faulty or no step is respected. Thus, the least respected stage is storage, where no service exceeds 25 %, this is due to the fact that no clinic has an intermediate waste storage area. And the most respected is treatment stage that does not exceed 75 %. This allowed to detect the inadequacies recorded at the level of the study establishment, and even improvements are suggested for sustainable management of healthcare waste at the level of Algerian health establishments.