Healthcare Waste Report - Environment Health

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS
Healthcare waste management in Malaysia
was initiated by the MoH in 1996 through
agreements with three private consortiums for
managing the healthcare, pharmaceutical and
general wastes of the northern, central,
eastern and southern zones. The central zone
comprises of five states the Federal Territory,
Selangor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan
while the north zone comprises of four states
Perak, Penang, Kedah and Perlis. The south
zone consists of three states Negeri Sembilan,
Malacca and Johor while the east zone consists
of two states Sabah and Sarawak, including
Labuan Island.
The objective of the initiative was to manage
all healthcare waste arising in the public
hospitals through a central government
privatization strategy involving the
government hospitals and other healthcare
institutions. In the late 90s, the service was
extended to collect healthcare waste from all
small government clinics throughout Malaysia.
By the end of 2006, the number of
government hospitals served was 147 and
while the clinics was more than 3000. The
infrastructure to handle healthcare waste was
also planned and designed to accept waste
from the private hospitals. After the approval
of the Private Healthcare and Facilities Act by
the Parliament, necessary steps were taken by
MoH to extend the Clinical Waste
Management System (CWMS) to the private
hospitals as part of the licensing requirement.
The national target is set to capture 50% of
the country’s private hospital healthcare waste
for proper management and disposal by 2010.
Under the Clinical Waste Management
System the DoE has licensed the same three
concessionaires appointed by MoH to provide
services for public and private sector hospitals.
Healthcare waste is managed under the
CWMS and general waste under the
Cleansing Services (CLS). The three
companies have more than 15,000 staffs
including managers, supervisors and general
workers for their daily activities under CWMS
and CLS.
Hazardous wastes known as “scheduled
wastes” in Malaysia are regulated by the DoE,
under the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Environment (MoNRE). At present, the DoE
has given exclusive right to a company to
manage all hazardous waste, from central
storage to treatment and final disposal.
Operators or contractors dealing with
hazardous waste need to be licensed for
transportation, treatment and disposal
services. The management of hazardous
chemical waste is managed by one or two
hospital staffs. They are appointed on a case
to case basis when needed, for the collection,
storage and disposal of the waste to the
approved site.
53 HEALTHCARE WASTE IN ASIA: INTUITIONS & INSIGHTS