Kirehe -Residents of Kirehe district have expressed concerns over poor waste management at Kirehe hospital.Hospital staff and patients who talked to The Sunday Times yesterday, said that there was need for urgent acquisition of a modern incinerator.Yasin Iyamuremye, an official working with the hospital said that the management of waste was very substandard.“Over 200,000 patients are served by the hospital...the waste is too much. There is serious need of an incinerator.”“We have a very small incinerator...it doesn’t burn to required degrees. Its capacity is very low, yet the hospital shares it with a dispensary,” he said.Claude Nsengiyumva a resident of the area said, although some basic steps have been taken towards effective waste management, , there still had a long way to go.He warned that people frequenting or living near the hospital might get infected.“Some infections like Hepatitis B are even more dangerous than HIV,” he said.The Injection Sector Advisor, Ministry of Health, Enoch Karekezi, however, said that all hospitals across the country would soon be equipped with the most advanced medical waste incinerators.Karekezi admitted that most hospitals, particularly in rural areas, have limited capacity to dispose their waste.He said the new facility would be able to burn 100 kilograms of waste every hour.“It is not Kirehe alone; other hospitals in the country need the incinerators. We shall soon install them in all hospitals in the country.“Such incinerators don’t produce smoke, but only heat. It can burn waste to very high degrees.” he said.
