The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has supported the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital to locally produce hand sanitizers to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection in health facilities.
UNDP has also donated 11,150 litres of hand sanitizers (5,000 pieces of 230ml bottles and 2,000 pieces of 5 litres refill bottles, with 162 dispensers) to the Ministry of Health to support 21 key facilities playing leading roles in the testing and management of COVID-19 cases across the country.
This was contained in a press release issued by UNDP, on Thursday, June 25, 2020.
“The provision of the hand sanitizers falls in line with UNDP’s multi-pronged approach to support the national COVID-19 response by promoting effective health care waste management. This ranges from monitoring and enforcement of best practices, training of frontline workers, provision of reference manuals and logistics (PPEs and consumables) for health care waste management, to reduce risks and infections”, the release said.
According to the press release, the UNDP has also procured consumables and personal protective equipment (PPEs) for the Ministry of Health to promote effective management of medical waste in the selected health facilities.
“These include 200 big infectious waste bins; 200 small infectious waste bins; 40,000 small infectious waste bags; 13,000 large infectious waste bags; 1,000 sharps containers; 1,000 safety masks; 200 safety goggles and 100 working gloves,” it said.
The release said UNDP would support medical waste management at different levels in health facilities in the country.
To this end, the UNDP has partnered the Ministry of Health to develop a brief note for the National COVID-19 Management Team and relevant stakeholders on the importance of prioritizing effective health care waste management during the pandemic, it said.
According to the release, UNDP has also simplified the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) included in the National Guidelines on health care waste management and produced about 1000 posters to guide the mainstreaming of best health care waste management processes in health facilities across the country.
“Also, the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HeFRA) under the Ministry of Health is being supported by UNDP to undertake monitoring on the discharge of infection prevention and control policies and protocols in about 800 health facilities in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions. The Accra School of Hygiene has joined the HeFRA team, conducting on-the-spot training for frontline health personnel on health care waste management at the various facilities. Also, UNDP is working with the Ministry of Health to undertake health care waste management and infection prevention training in quarantine and isolation centres in the country,” it said.
The release said the existing partnership on medical waste management with the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO), has also resulted in the establishment of a Policy and Guidelines on healthcare waste management, as well as a modular course with the Accra School of Hygiene to provide certification programmes on health care waste management.
It added that the medical waste project, which was supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) trained over 800 health personnel in the past four years and has provided autoclave treatment systems for selected health care facilities to adopt the best environmental health care waste management practices in the country.
ISD
