The figures have been released by the Environment Management Administration under the Ministry of Heath at a workshop held recently. While the volume of medical waste is large, Vietnam only has 200 incinerators to handle the waste. There are only concentrated incineration enterprises in Hanoi and HCM City, while those in other cities and provinces are small and medium-sized.

The 200 incinerators now in existence treat medical waste from 435 hospitals, or 40 percent of the total hospitals throughout the country.

It is estimated that 33 percent of hospitals in districts and provinces don’t have specialized incinerators. The daily waste from the hospitals has been treated with small-scale incinerators or handled by the businesses under the contracts with the hospitals.

As such, of the 350-500 tons of daily medical waste, only 1/3 could be burnt with dedicated incinerators with advanced technologies. A high proportion of the remaining waste is buried on the hospitals’ campuses, or thrown into public dumping grounds, often near residential quarters, posing a big risk people’s lives and health.

This means that Vietnam will have to allocate a bigger budget for medical waste treatment. Currently, Vietnam pays VND1.2 million per hospital bed annually to ensure environmental sanitation.

Analysts assert that the figures are just estimates. In fact, there are many other unofficial ways medical waste has been disposed of after leaving hospitals.

Medical waste, such as used gloves and injection needles, bandages and plastic tubes, can also be taken by hospital workers who exploit management loopholes. They bring them to the market, where they can be sold as high-quality materials for recycling.