There are some things that you don't have to collect
As a crispy worker, you not only left clumps of precious hair at the workstation, but also let the hospital treasure some of your "body composition".
The hair at the workstation is thrown in the trash, but what happens to the stones, hemorrhoids and nodules that you have carefully cultivated after they are removed in the hospital operating room?
These "little gifts" you leave to the hospital are all pathological waste.
In addition to these discarded human tissues and organs generated during surgery or other treatments, pathological wastes also include tissues and corpses of animals that have died for medical experiments, as well as human tissues and pathological wax blocks that have been discarded after making pathological sections for the diagnosis and treatment of incurable diseases [1].
Although you can take away organs or tissues that do not have a negative impact, such as wisdom teeth [2], and even in 2005, the Ministry of Health thoughtfully emphasized in a directive that a healthy placenta after delivery belongs to the mother [3], most of the tissues or organs that were once connected to your flesh and blood are not taken away if they are stripped under the treatment of a doctor.
Clinical waste is classified into infectious waste, injurious waste, pathological waste, chemical waste and pharmaceutical waste[1].
Pathological waste is a member of the National Hazardous Waste List [4], and it contains bacteria, viruses, etc., which are likely to cause the spread of infectious diseases [5].
For example, the severed appendix of a patient with acute appendicitis caused by a pathogen may carry a variety of gram-negative bacteria, including Escherichia coli [6][7]; If the diseased liver of a patient with hepatitis B is removed, it may carry the hepatitis B virus that can be transmitted through blood, and if the diseased liver is littered, innocent passers-by who like to tear off the barbs on their hands and cause bleeding may be infected with hepatitis B by accidentally touching it [3][8].
Not to mention pathological wastes such as amputated limbs, stillborn babies, and stillbirths, which may cause panic among the masses and affect social order, not only need to be treated in a unified and standardized manner, but are also explicitly included in funeral management [1][3]. After all, you don't want to go downstairs and say good morning to a half-lifeless arm in the trash can when you go downstairs to throw out the trash.
Moreover, if a large number of discarded human organs and tissues are stacked or buried indiscriminately, they will volatilize two highly toxic and foul-smelling gases, putrescine and cadaverine, as well as a series of organic acids and other substances, which will not only pollute the surrounding soil and air, but also may change the pH value of groundwater and provide a source of nutrients for bacteria along the groundwater path [9][10].
After years of practice and exploration, the attribution of pathological waste is now generally distinguished according to its harmfulness, utilization value, and whether it violates public order and good customs for individuals to dispose of by themselves
Therefore, pathological waste, which is a hazardous waste, has its own set of special unified disposal specifications.
Medical institutions carefully register the identity information of pathological waste, including its source, handover time, disposal method, final destination, and signature of the person in charge, and then pack it in a special yellowish packaging bag with warning signs and put it into a special temporary storage facility [11][12].
However, pathological waste cannot "stay" in a temporary storage facility for too long. Generally speaking, pathological waste needs to be cleared on a daily basis, and even if it is indeed impossible to clean up on the same day due to conditions, it must be transported by a specific means of transportation to the nearest disposal unit with special qualifications within 48 hours, and the "breakthrough mode" of centralized treatment must be opened [11][13].
In 2021, 333 of the country's 343 prefecture-level cities had medical waste disposal facilities, with a coverage rate of 97.1%[14] / Picture Worm Creative
Different from the household waste you produce on a daily basis, the key part of dealing with pathological waste is disinfection. Although incineration is currently the largest disinfection method [15], the non-incineration method of dry chemical disinfection with chemical disinfection reagents such as calcium oxide or ethylene oxide [16] has also become a rising "new star" in practice due to its low threshold, more environmentally friendly, and targeted outstanding advantages [17].
Pathological waste that has successfully passed the disinfection checkpoint and met the "Pollution Control Standards for Domestic Waste Landfills" has been transformed into non-hazardous residue at this time, as long as you go to the landfill and choose a suitable pit to lie down quietly, you can successfully take off the medal of "Successfully Breaking the Pass" [18][19].
Such a high-standard disposal process sounds complicated and cumbersome, but it should not be taken lightly in order to prevent the contamination of the environment or the spread of disease during the collection, temporary storage, transportation and disposal of pathological waste [13].
The residues, waste water, and waste gases generated by the disinfection and incineration of medical waste all need to meet the corresponding emission standards before they can be disposed of in the next step
Moreover, as the disposal process is updated and iterated towards a more professional and environmentally friendly goal, the cost of medical waste, including pathological waste, has also risen. According to the data, the cost of medical waste disposal for a single bed in a tertiary hospital has risen from 2.8 yuan in 2019 to 3.5 yuan in 2021 [20], and hospitals in some areas have even begun to charge separate disposal fees [21].
Weigh the wallet in your hand, or from now on be a migrant worker who stays up less late and gets less angry, and is committed to eliminating nodules.