ABSTRACT
Abstract Hospitals and other health facilities generate an ever-increasing amount of waste, approximately 15% of which may be infectious, toxic, or radioactive. The World Health Organization has been addressing the issue since the 1980s. After initially focusing on high-income countries, it then focused on low-income countries, with unsafe disposal methods in landfills and inadequate incinerators as major concerns. Gradually, the understanding of the issue has undergone several shifts, including from a focus on the component of medical waste considered "hazardous" to all forms of waste, and from accepting medical waste as a necessary downside of high-quality healthcare to seeing the avoidance of healthcare waste as a component of high quality healthcare.
Resumo Hospitais e outros centros de tratamento de saúde geram um volume de resíduos cada vez maior, dos quais cerca de 15% podem ser infecciosos, tóxicos ou radioativos. A Organização Mundial da Saúde começou a enfrentar o problema na década de 1980. Inicialmente, concentrou-se nos países ricos, depois mudou o foco para os países pobres, onde métodos de eliminação inseguros, como aterros sanitários e incineradores inadequados, preocupavam. Aos poucos, a compreensão do problema passou por mudanças, inclusive do enfoque no conteúdo do resíduo hospitalar considerado "perigoso", passando para todas as formas de resíduos, e da aceitação do resíduo médico como um inconveniente inerente aos cuidados de saúde de alta qualidade, até o conceito de que evitar a produção de resíduos hospitalares faz parte dos cuidados de saúde de alta qualidade.
Subject(s)
History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Waste Management/history , Health Facility Administration/history , Medical Waste/history , Waste Management/methods , Health Facilities/historyABSTRACT
Este trabajo analiza el proceso de construcción del sistema público de salud argentino, poniendo en evidencia las limitaciones que se produjeron en el proyecto de nacionalización de las políticas sanitarias en la postguerra y el papel central que tuvieron las jurisdicciones subnacionales, provincializando la provisión de los servicios. Más precisamente se visibiliza cómo, en el segundo cuarto del siglo XX, la ampliación de los servicios de salud en algunas provincias fue principalmente el resultado de la acción de las reparticiones locales antes que nacionales. Con el propósito de dilucidar mejor ese proceso, estudiamos la trayectoria de los dispositivos sanitarios públicos en la provincia de Córdoba entre 1930 y 1955.
This paper analyzes the process of construction of the Argentine public health system, highlighting the limitations that occurred in the proposed nationalization of health policy in the postwar period and the central role played by subnational jurisdictions, making the provision of services rendered on a provincial basis. More precisely, in this respect it is seen how the expansion of health services in some provinces shows us how, in the second quarter of the twentieth century, it was primarily the result of the action of local rather than national departments. In order to better elucidate this process, the trajectory of public healthcare facilities in the province of Córdoba between 1930 and 1955 was studied.