Assessment of Healthcare Waste Management Across Different Categories of Health Facilities in the Limbe Health District

Context/Justification: In Cameroon, healthcare waste management (HCWM) is ineffective as waste is seldom segregated, serving as a threat to human health, the public and the environment. An assessment carried out by WHO/UNICEF in 2015 revealed that 58% of health facilities sampled in 24 different countries had adequate waste management system.

Objective: To evaluate healthcare waste management in fifteen selected health facilities of 4 different categories in the Limbe health district.

Methodology: We carried out a health facility based cross sectional study with descriptive and analytic components in 15 health facilities in the Limbe health district from November 2022 to July 2023. Data was collected for a period of 83 days, from March to May 2023 from all healthcare workers; whose work led to the generation of healthcare waste, who were involved in HCWM and who accepted to participate in our study. The data was collected using a questionnaire, a health facility based observational checklist and also through interviews.

Results: Out of the 341 healthcare workers who participated in our study, 327 were retained giving a response rate of 95.9%, Of which; 129(39.4%), 79(24.2%), 38(11.6%), 81(24.8%) were from 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th categories respectively. The overall knowledge level revealed 49(15.0%) of study participants had good knowledge level and overall practice revealed 7(46.7%) health facilities practiced safe HCWM. The most reported problems faced with HCWM implementation was non-respect of HCWM guidelines 136(41.6%). Statistical significant associations were shown between education level (p = 0.002), training on HCWM (p = 0.001) and knowledge on HCWM. Marginal statistical significant associations were found between health facility category and HCWM practice.

Conclusion: From the gaps observed in our study, we noticed that an appreciable percentage (50.2%) of healthcare workers knew what healthcare waste management was but didn’t practice appropriate HCWM which could have been because of; Ignorance due to their level of education, Lack/inadequate training on HCWM, Non-respect of HCWM guidelines. We can therefore conclude that healthcare waste management practice did not meet norms and does not depend on the health facility category.