UEM Edgenta Bhd’s wholly-owned healthcare support services (HSS) unit, Edgenta Mediserve Sdn Bhd, is one of the concessionaires appointed by the government through the Health Ministry (MoH) to manage clinical waste from public medical facilities.

According to UEM Edgenta, April 2020 saw the highest amount of COVID-19 waste collected by Edgenta Mediserve since the Movement Control Order (MCO) took effect on March 18, 2020.

“The average percentage of COVID-19 waste collected in April was 15.7 per cent, as compared with 10.6 per cent in March (March 18-31) and 9.7 per cent in May (May 1-15).

“April also saw the highest amount of daily COVID-19 waste collected, accounting for 27.8 per cent of the total clinical waste collected in that month,” UEM Edgenta told Bernama in an email recently.

Under the current concession, Edgenta Mediserve manages clinical waste from 33 government hospitals and nine health clinics in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia, as well as 12 private hospitals, 694 private clinics and 83 Ministry of Defence clinics throughout Malaysia, including Sabah and Sarawak.

NO STORAGE, NO DOUBLE HANDLING OF COVID-19 WASTE

According to UEM Edgenta, the COVID-19 waste is not classified as clinical waste but as infectious waste, which is suspected of containing pathogens (disease-causing bacteria, viruses, parasites, or fungi) in enough concentration or quantity to cause disease in susceptible hosts.

Whereas, it said clinical waste is any waste which consists wholly or partly of human tissue, blood or other body fluids, excretions, used drugs, swabs, dressing, syringes, needles or other instruments, as determined by MoH as being waste which unless rendered safe, may prove hazardous to any person coming into contact.

“Therefore, the COVID-19 waste is treated as number one priority in terms of waste to be treated, which means ‘no storage and no double handling’ of such waste.

“And we always ensure that our present treatment facilities are always available during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said UEM Edgenta.

CLINICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT SOPS STRENGTHENED

With over 20 years of experience in operating clinical waste business, Edgenta Mediserve has been capitalising on its technological know-how and best practices to handle COVID-19 waste from cradle to grave.

“We also have strengthened our current standard operating procedures (SOPs) relating to clinical waste management,” it said.

For instance, Edgenta Mediserve’s HSS team must don full-body PPE gear, such as face mask, face shield, apron, and gloves when handling COVID-19 waste as required by MOH guidelines and SOPs.

“The COVID-19 waste is collected using a dedicated wheeled bin which is specifically labelled ‘person under investigation (PUI) COVID-19’.

“In addition, all sites are provided additional collection wheeled bins and are labelled prior to collection,” said UEM Edgenta.

Apart from that, it stressed that all Edgenta Mediserve lorries are installed with global positioning system (GPS) trackers and provided with spillage management kits in the event of an emergency.

“The collection, transportation and receiving at treatment facility procedures are always being re-evaluated and improved based on best practices as well as in consultation with MoH,” it said.


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