Abstract
The scientific development and economic advances have led to the identification of many pathogenic agents in hospital effluents. Hospital wastewaters are qualitatively similar to municipal wastewaters, with the difference that these wastewaters contain toxic and infectious substances and compounds that can be dangerous for the health of the environment, employees of these centers, and the entire community. Therefore, in the last few years, it has been emphasized that all hospitals and medical and health centers should have a treatment facility for their produced wastewater so that the health of the society and people is not threatened. An issue that is not paid attention to has become one of the environmental problems and concerns of the world today. The present study focused on the investigate hospital wastewater treatment methods and its impact on human health and the environment. In this narrative study, the first literature search was performed with four hundred and twenty-three articles were retrieved based on PubMed, Elsevier, Web of science, Spring, and Google Scholar databases. The results of this study showed that wastewater from hospitals and medical centers can play a significant impress in polluting soil and aquatic environments and spreading infectious diseases. According to the mentioned contents, collection and treatment of hospital wastewater is essential. In addition, if hospital wastewater enters the wastewater collection network without knowing its characteristics or with incomplete treatment and finally enters the municipal wastewater treatment plant. It causes many problems, including disturbing the balance of the biological system of the treatment plant. Purification and disposal of hospital wastewater is considered a vital action based on environmental standards. The results of this study also showed that the treatment methods of this type of hospital wastewater can play a significant role in reducing the spread of diseases caused by hospital wastewater treatment, including infectious diseases. The results of this study can be very useful for politicians, the managers of the Ministry of Energy and Health and the Environmental Organization in choosing the appropriate methods and process to reduce hospital wastewater and increase the efficiency of hospital wastewater treatment plants.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences for providing necessary facilities to perform this research.
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Research Funding: This work wasn’t financially supported.
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Author contributions: AA-RC, M-JM, HS-M, RS-Z, MT, DB-P, GA-G, PA, AK and SS were principal investigators of the study and drafted the manuscript. M-JM, AA-RC and SS were advisors of the study. AA-RC, M-JM, HS-M, RS-Z, MT, DB-P, GA-G, PA, AK and SS performed the statistical analysis. All authors contributed to the design and data analysis and assisted in the preparation of the final version of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Informed consent: Not applicable.
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Ethical approval: The conducted research is not related to either human or animal use.
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Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Consent to Participate: ‘Not applicable’ for that specific section.
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