Problematic aspects in the implementation of the legal mechanisms regarding the management of the waste resulted from the medical activity

Abstract

Medical services in Moldova remain behind the minimum European standards, which exposes workers in the fi eld and hospitalized patients to the risk of transmitting nosocomial infections in medical institutions. In this respect, the hygiene conditions related to the management and destruction of waste from medical activity are not good enough: the health and environmental risks persist. Th e Moldovan health authorities, aware of this issue, have recently taken some real steps to standardize medical waste management procedures by publishing a 2018 Sanitary Regulation on Waste Management in order to strengthen waste legislation. However, the standardized practices of medical waste management, which are to be applied at the moment in various medical institutions in the country, remain only at the level of normative acts, without identifying the real mechanisms to implement them. Th e problem is not «what to do», but «how to do it».