Effects of medical tourism on hospital waste as an important criteria of the green hospital

Abstract

Health tourism is important as one of the goals of economic development for developing countries, which can cause consequences such as increasing the production of medical waste. In this study, the effect of increasing health services in Iran's public and private hospitals for health tourists on the production of medical waste and its related economic and environmental consequences were investigated. The results showed that in the health tourism development scenarios, 5.17 kg/day of medical waste will be produced for each tourist. The proportion of infectious waste in studied hospitals was 48.73 % in average. Providing health services to an average of four health tourists per day in the studied hospitals will lead to an increase in the cost of waste management up to 109,5807 USD/year and the emission of 12,543.6 μg of pollutants resulting from the disinfection of infectious waste. Although the development of health tourism is one of the goals of economic development, it is necessary to pay attention to the environmental consequences and indirect costs caused by it.