Louisiana Medical Waste Disposal

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals classifies medical waste as waste considered likely to be infectious by virtue of what it is or how it may have been generated in the context of health care or health care like activities. Types of waste include but are not limited to:

• Cultures and stocks of infectious agents and associated biologicals, including cultures from medical and pathological laboratories, from research and industrial laboratories.
• Human pathological wastes including tissue, organs, body parts and fluids that are removed during surgery or autopsy.
• Human blood, human blood products, blood collection bags, tubes and vials.
• Sharps used or generated in health care or laboratory settings.
• Bandages, diapers, “blue pads,” and other disposable materials if they have covered infected wounds or have been contaminated by patients isolated to protect others from the spread of infectious diseases.
• Contaminated animal carcasses, body parts and bedding, especially those intentionally exposed to pathogens in research.
• Any other refuse which has been mingled with potentially infectious biomedical waste.

For storage, potentially infectious medical wastes must be stored in a secure manner. Compactors shall not be used for storage. Except for small quantities (defined as a single package containing less than 11 pounds of waste other than sharps or less than 2.2 pounds of sharps), wastes can be transported off the site where they were generated only by transporters permitted by the State Health Officer.

These Louisiana Department of Health Hospitals classifications and requirements are one of the tools needed to train your health care staff about medical waste disposal. As a Louisiana private health care or federal health care employer, OHSA regulation also apply to your work, if any of your employees can reasonably be expected to be exposed to infectious materials. Employees who handle medical waste are considered to have occupational exposure. The OHSA rules require employers to develop exposure control plans, to adopt engineering controls and work practices that minimize exposures, to provide hand washing facilities and personal protective equipment, to provide training to workers, to provide hepatitis B vaccines free of charge, to provide medical evaluation and follow-up to exposed workers, and to keep medical and training records.

How do you comply with these requirements, train your medical care staff, and get organized? A professional medical waste disposal company can help you on all fronts. MedPro Medical Waste Disposal Louisiana offers a Safety Compliance Suite of services that addresses each of these needs. We are available to train key members of your staff, who can then train other staff members to properly dispose of medical waste. Compliance trainers can assist with education about the regulations from OHSA, LDEQ, LDHH, DOT and EPA, to sort out, identify and define exactly what you need to know within this complex web of information. The resources we offer are comprehensive to train you at every level of management and operations. Following through for your entire team, you will be enrolled, trained, certified and safe. You will also have an online portal to monitor all of the training and certification of your staff. With these tools at your disposal, all of your medical waste disposal Louisiana considerations will be handled. If you choose MedPro Medical Waste Disposal Louisiana for your medical waste and biohazardous waste disposal services, one of the first things we will do is a compliance survey for your health care facility, to assess where you might need our help in training to bring you into regulations compliance. We will talk to you in person, regularly, so that any changes to regulations concerning medical waste, pharmaceutical disposal and compliance can be folded into your ongoing staff training. Together, we will bring your good and caring health care delivery to the next level for the Louisiana people whom you serve.