Nurses/Midwives Compliance with WHO Guidelines for Healthcare Waste Management in Primary Healthcare Centres, Abia State

Medical waste management has been of concern to governments world-wide. Considering the paucity of literature on this topic this study investigated nurses and midwives awareness and management of maternity wastes in compliance with WHO guidelines in healthcare facilities in Abia State. Four research questions and four hypotheses guided this study. Literature were reviewed on the concepts and variables relevant to this study including the theoretical framework which was hinged on the Human belief model and the social systems theory. The research design was descriptive survey. The population comprised 93 midwives and nurses all of which were used for the study implying that the census sampling method was used. Data were collected through personal hand delivery and direct observation using questionnaire and observation schedule. Data collected were analysed using mean, percentage and z-test conducted at 0.05 (5%) level of significance. Results show that nurses and midwives in the healthcare facilities in Abia State are aware of and comply with the (WHO) guidelines on general waste management(68.5%) and to a great extent; infectious waste management (56.75%) to a great extent; guideline for hazardous waste management (69%) and guideline for pharmaceutical waste management (61.5%).Test of hypotheses conducted at 0.5% probability level or p < 0.05 comparing the opinion of nurses and midwives on compliance to the WHO guidelines did not reject any of the hypotheses. It was recommended among other things that Waste management curriculum be introduced in the pre and post certification trainings of all the nurses and midwives considering the health implications of mishandling these wastes; health management staff should be made to strictly enforce complies with WHO guidelines on waste management in all the healthcare facilities in the state. Also government should provide incinerators for the healthcare facilities in Abia State for proper burning of combustible healthcare wastes.