-awaiting arrival of Canadian consultants

THE COMPLETION of the US$1M Hydroclave Waste Sterilization System at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) has been delayed pending the arrival of Canadian consultants.
Director of Facilities Management at the GPHC, Mr. Kamal Haricharan, said Friday that the system is approximately 95 per cent done,  and is expected to be functional either by the end of January or early in February.
Along with the return of the Canadian consultants, who are expected to be involved in the commissioning, the system’s completion is also dependent on a Conveyer System which will be used to deposit the shredded materials into the compactor, a minor detail.
The new system is expected to facilitate the GPHC, as well as health care facilities in Georgetown and its environs in handling biomedical waste.
Bio-medical waste is any solid or liquid waste which may present a threat of infection to humans. It includes non-liquid tissue, body parts, blood, blood products, and body fluids from humans and other primates, laboratory and veterinary wastes which contain human disease-causing agents, and discarded sharps.
As such, if not handled in a proper way, biomedical waste can be a potent source of diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis and other bacterial diseases causing serious threats to human health.
Among the benefits of the system for healthcare facilities are: The reduction of bacteria to 99.9 per cent after biomedical waste is sterilized; having an end-product of dry waste, regardless of its original water content; no odor due to the dryness, volume reduction to about 85 per cent of the original volume; weight reduction to 70 per cent of original weight; and wide acceptance of end product as harmless waste.
The hydroclave system, which will be sited at the northwestern section of GPHC’s ‘N’ Bloc, comprises several components, namely: A specially-designed and dedicated vehicle to transport bagged infectious waste for treatment; a scale to monitor the waste from every healthcare facility; a double-walled cylindrical vessel, which processes the waste; a shredder, which provides post-processed shredding of the waste; a compacter to reduce the volume of treated waste; a bin to collect and store treated/compacted waste; and a skip truck to collect bin of treated waste to a municipal landfill.
The system essentially uses a cylindrical vessel, horizontally mounted, with one or more top-loading doors, and a smaller unloading one at the bottom. The vessel is fitted with a motor driven shaft, to which are attached powerful fragmenting/mixing arms that slowly rotate the vessel.
When steam is introduced into the vessel’s jacket, it transmits heat rapidly to the fragmented waste, which in turn produces steam of its own. During the process, the waste is shredded, dehydrated and harmful micro-organisms are destroyed.
Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy’s contention is that, with the new system to treat biomedical waste, Guyana has moved one step ahead.
Ramsammy observed that in the past, not treating biomedical waste, but waste generated by the health sector in general, was not recognized as a public health problem.