GPHC’s disposal system “serving its intended purpose”

Feb 16, 2014 News

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By Romila Boodram
After nearly two years of operation, health officials are satisfied that the state-of-the-art disposal system at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) is “serving its intended purpose”.

The Hydroclave, which was installed in March 2012, was added to the hospital’s system to ensure that its and other health institutions’ medical waste is processed in a safe manner before being discarded at a landfill site or like facility.
Kaieteur News was told that representatives from Hydroclave Inc. visit the GPHC twice a year to provide maintenance. “Since it was installed, we never experience any problems. We have a list of critical spares that we have in stock in case of any problems,” Store Manager Daniel Harricharan informed this publication.
Chief Executive Officer, Michael Khan, described the hydroclave as “one of the good things that has happened in this country”. He further urged other medical institutions to utilize the hydroclave service, and stressed that the facility can handle waste from multiple entities.
Waste Management Consultant at the GPHC, Rufus Lewis, said that the hydroclave, which he asserted is recognised as the most modern biomedical waste system that has ever been introduced to the Caribbean, is a sterilization method that ensures that all medical waste, from public and private institutions in Georgetown and its environs, is treated before disposal, so as to significantly reduce risks of contamination.
The processing style also serves to reduce the volume of waste to about 85 percent, and in its final state, is accepted as harmless. The hydroclave has a capacity of 110 cubic feet.
Lewis told Kaieteur News that before the hydroclave was introduced in Guyana, medical waste from the GPHC was collected by the Mayor and City Council who then dumped it at the Eccles dumpsite without it being treated.
“In 2006, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, the then Health Minister saw the need for this (for waste to be treated before it was dumped) and we were asked to find a solution. We looked at many technologies available. We looked at incineration, microwaving, chemical disinfection and we look at encapsulation landfilling,” Lewis said.
He said that based on a number of factors, the hydroclave was selected.
“We looked at a number of technologies and we employed some basic criteria such as technical feasibility, cost, environmental safety and public acceptability, because we had a bad experience with incineration. We had to close down an incinerator in Princes Street, Georgetown, because the public rose up.”

THE HYDROCLAVE PROCESS
The vessel is fitted with a motor-driven shaft, to which are attached powerful fragmenting/mixing arms (blades) that slowly rotate inside the vessel. When steam is introduced in the vessel jacket, it transmits heat rapidly to the fragmented waste, which, in turn, produces steam of its own.

A temperature sensor is located in the bottom inside part of the vessel, which measures the temperature of the waste as it is agitated and mixed, and the sensor reports back to the main computerized controller, which automatically sets treatment parameters ensuring complete waste sterility.
After sterilization, the liquid is steamed out of the vessel, re-condensed and drained. The remaining waste is dehydrated, fragmented, and self-unloaded.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE TREATMENT CYCLE
“It is a vessel within a vessel that has within it powerful blades that break up the waste into pieces and while that is going on, steam which is placed in the jacket of the hydroclave sterilizes the waste,” Lewis explained.
He added that after that process is completed, the waste goes into a shredder and then to a compactor, following which “it drops into a bin and GPHC would have contracted private contractors that would take the treated waste to the Haags Bosch Sanitary Landfill Site in a truck that was purchased specifically to move the waste from the hydroclave to the dumpsite”.
Lewis emphasised that given the extensive and thorough nature of processing, when the waste leaves the hydroclave facility, it can be treated similarly to domestic-type waste.
Currently, there are 25 medical facilities that utilize the GPHC’s hydroclave system.
Meanwhile, the Store Manager is calling on more health organizations to “come on board and get their waste sterilized before discarding it”. “If an organization wants to utilize our service, all they have to do is show their interest and contact us.”
According to Harricharan, the hospital charges a total of $675 per bag of medical waste. “It’s the 20-pound bags and it has to be three-quarter filled.”
The hydroclave is operated three times a week by sanitation workers at the GPHC.

“If we don’t operate on a particular day we store it (collected waste) in an air-conditioning room to slow the process of decomposition,” Harricharan said.

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