Health facilities in Kabarole district have received an assortment of hand and environmental hygiene equipment and personal protective gear to boost their prevention and control measures against COVID-19 and other hygiene-related infections.

Martin Watisisi the regional Water and Sanitation (WASH) advisor at International Water and Sanitation Center (IRC) in western Uganda said that they were working with Kabarole district local government to support health facilities in the deliveries of critical care and safety of health workers beyond emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Watisisi said  Wednesday while delivering the items at Bukuku health center IV that several health facilities in the district lacked hand-washing facilities.

“COVID-19 seems to be settling with us one year along, instead of going away as the whole world hoped. It is no longer an emergency, we are therefore responding to the prevailing and persistent need for healthcare worker's safety while at work. We have provided handwashing facilities, hand sanitizer, medical waste bins, aprons, masks, and other protective gear to all healthcare facilities in the district, both government and private,” Watisisi said.

Dr. Jackson Magezi the in-charge at Bukuku Health Center IV said that the facility was facing a serious challenge in the disposal of medical waste since it has been operating without an incinerator.

“For eight years we have not been having an incinerator and that has been a very big challenge which we have been facing. We at times are forced to ban the medical waste and that is very dangerous to our lives and the lives of the nearby communities,” Magezi said.

According to Magezi some of the infectious waste includes used face masks; syringes, hand gloves, blades, medicinal wastes, and other associated wastes arising from services produced in the course of COVID-19 healthcare activities.

Magezi said that they are in dire need of a new medical waste incinerator to dispose of biomedical waste piling up from the treatment of those infected with the contagion because the old firebox cannot handle all types of wastes.

The World Health Organization calls for use of the best available technology that conforms to the Stockholm Convention to reduce emissions of dioxins and furans which can cause cancer and harm the immune system, in the disposal of such waste products and materials.

David Musinguzi a resident of Karago said that there was a need for the government to construct a modern incinerator at the health facility.

“We need more hand washing facilities at the health center and an incinerator our health workers should be allowed to operate under a safe environment,” Musinguzi said.