TIRANA, Dec. 20 – Treatment and disposal of hospital waste is a problem in most Albanian hospitals with dangerous medical waste often posing a threat to medical staff and patients themselves but also households and the environment in cases of ending up in dumpsites or even rivers as shocking evidence has shown.
An inspection carried out by Albania’s Supreme State Audit Institution into three of the country’s regional hospitals, including the Tirana University Hospital Center, the country’s largest and sole tertiary care center, has shown that hospital waste treatment and disposal lacks both a clear legal framework and efficient treatment by both authorities and private companies contracted to handle waste through incineration.
“Sorting, storage and treatment of hospital waste is not carried out in compliance with legal criteria and best practices,” says the report analyzing the 2015-17 performance in three hospitals.
The inspection also included the Fier regional hospital, the country’s second largest, and the Kukes hospital, northeast Albania, with a series of recommendations issued to authorities to improve the emergency situation.
The audit showed provisional storage of hospital waste is carried out in inappropriate facilities that could pose a threat to both medical staff and patients coming into contact with it.
“The provisional storage of hospital waste at Tirana’s QSUT hospital and the Fier and Kukes regional hospitals is often handled at toilets, laundries, doctors’ rooms or other inappropriate facilities where medical staff and patients could come into direct contact with it,” says the Supreme State Audit.
Experts say that around a fifth of hospital waste is dangerous and other waste can become as dangerous in case of being mixed.
The audit also showed authorities at the three inspected hospitals have no information about the dangerous cytotoxic waste containing chemicals that are toxic to the cells and that the hazardous waste is not separated and packed in red plastic bags under the country’s guide on the safe administration of hospital waste.
The situation with pharmaceutical waste management is no better with more than half of pharmacies in Tirana admitting to not having contracts with treatment companies over handling their expired medicines, according to a study conducted by Tirana-based Eden environmental center.
“While there is legislation in place that should ensure that Albania meets the global standard of pharmaceutical waste disposal, there is very little evidence that it is being carried out effectively,” says the late 2016 report.
Back in mid-2017, a medical waste treatment company was caught on camera dumping untreated dangerous hospital waste on a river bank in the Tirana outskirts, shocking public opinion about the way a private company contracted to treat medical waste handled the process.
The publication of the scandal at an investigative TV show led to the company having its licence revoked and criminal charges being filed against a female manager for hitting a journalist confronting her about the waste being dumped into Erzen River.
Albania’s riverbeds are some of Europe’s most polluted as they are routinely used as dumping grounds, causing environmental concern among people living along the banks and the shoreline where the rivers deposit plastic waste. Waste pollution and soil erosion due to illegal cutting of trees often leads to flooding because of rivers overtopping their banks.
Waste management is one of the most pressing issues facing Albania and its emerging tourism industry, with waste often dumped in inappropriate sites and burned, triggering environmental and health concerns.
Three quarters of Albania’s municipal waste is landfilled, about 17 percent is recycled, about 2 percent is incinerated to produce electricity, and 3 percent is burned or dumped outside landfills, according to 2017 data by state statistical institute, INSTAT.
Albania has already built its first waste-to-energy plant in Elbasan, central Albania and has signed concession contracts backed by the central government to build two new such plants in Fier and Tirana, despite environmental concerns by local residents and environmentalists worried over the new plants and their incinerators increasing dangerous pollution in the country.
