Medical Waste Volume At Mataram Hospital Reaches 300 Kilograms Per Day

Incinerator machines to treat infectious waste at the Regional General Hospital (RSUD) of Mataram City, West Nusa Tenggara Province. BETWEEN ANTARA/Nirkomala

MATARAM - The Regional General Hospital (RSUD) of Mataram City, West Nusa Tenggara Province, said the volume of infectious medical waste at the Mataram Hospital every day reaches 300 kilograms per day. "But of the 300 kilograms, we can process 50 percent or 150 kilograms ourselves. The rest, we leave it to third parties," said Head of the Mataram City Hospital Environmental Health Installation Fira Frismawati in Mataram, Antara, Wednesday, May 31. This condition occurs, he said, because the incinerator machine to process infectious waste at the Mataram Hospital only has a capacity of 150 kilograms. This means that the current engine capacity is not in accordance with the waste produced. "This machine was purchased in 2020, after a medical waste treatment permit was obtained from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. At that time, the height of the pipeline was 14 meters," he said. However, he continued, because the number of residents around the Mataram Hospital is increasing and the settlements are getting denser, based on an agreement with residents, an additional height of up to 20 meters is in accordance with standards from the Environment so as not to interfere or have an impact on local residents. In addition, the RSUD and local residents also have an agreement to burn infectious medical waste only once a day. "For this reason, our machines are only able to process 50 percent of infectious waste every day. We send the ashes from infectious waste to industrial waste treatment areas (KPLI)," he said. He said the treatment of infectious medical waste was carried out outside the area because it was not yet in the area. Therefore, third parties cannot take medical waste every day because it can have an impact on operational costs. "So they take it once a month it can reach 4.5 tons. Because a day there are 150 kilograms of infectious waste that cannot be processed in our incinerator machines at a cost for third parties of IDR 31,000 per kilogram," he said.