In the absence of management plan for healthcare wastes, defined
responsibilities, availability of waste management procedures
and staff training play an important role in effective waste
management. In addition, regular staff supervision and facility
auditing contributes to sustain such effectiveness. The study revealed
that there is three groups’ medical staff (50%), administrative
staff (30%) and infectious control staff (20%) who are
responsible for waste handling activities. However, our results
show that there are no clearly defined responsibilities for each of
these groups. Waste management instructions or basic procedures
were reported to exist for 59% of the surveyed facilities and 52%
indicated that they used Bahrain’s regulatory standard in preparation
of their rules and instructions in handling hazardous waste.
Auditing was reported for 40% of the facilities, while staff training
on hazardous waste handling was provided in 55% of the facilities.
The study findings revealed that there is no structured healthcare
management plan at the country level or at most of the surveyed
facilities.