Healthcare Waste Archives - Monitor Telegram

Dispensing Harm. How a handful of pharmacists flooded Ontario’s streets with lethal fentanyl amid a national opioid crisis

March 11, 2019

A burly man wearing a clown mask walks into a pharmacy. Brandishing a large knife, he heads straight for the dispensing counter and hands the pharmacist a note.

The pharmacist, Waseem Shaheen, opens the narcotics safe and fills a white garbage bag with fentanyl patches while the impatient robber waves his knife threateningly.

Shaheen hands over the bag and drops to his knees, hands in the air as the clown robber thrusts the knife through the air a few more times before beating a hasty retreat.

“I got robbed,” Shaheen told a 911 operator minutes later.

“What was taken?” the operator asked.

“Everything.”

Only this was no robbery at all.

It was a charade, concocted by Shaheen to cover up an illicit drug-dealing operation in which he trafficked at least 5,000 fentanyl patches out the back door of his Ottawa pharmacy.

While the provincial government monitors the prescribing and dispensing of opioids in Ontario, no alarms were raised by the conspicuous volumes moving through Shaheen’s pharmacy.

Getting away with pharmacy fraud is ‘no problem’ in Ontario

February 27, 2019

A Toronto Star/Global News investigation reveals that few pharmacists are ever caught for fraudulent overbilling, despite evidence that it’s a persistent problem, and that chances of a criminal conviction are slight in the rare cases that are pursued.

“I’m the cleaner,” says the man wearing a ball cap and sunglasses to mask his identity.

“I help them to clean up the books … fix the papers,” he says. “Make it look nice, like a proper pharmacy.”

We’ll call the cleaner “Ivan.” He agreed to share details of the murky world of pharmacy fraud — a scam that costs the public millions of dollars every year, but no one knows exactly how much.

Ivan is the man pharmacists call when they have been flagged for overbilling the Ontario Drug Benefit Program (ODB), sometimes for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. He comes in and creates a paper trail to hide the fraud and get pharmacists off.

Canada’s Labour Leaders Urge Premiers to Collaborate on a National Universal Pharmacare Plan

July 19, 2018

During the Council of the Federation meeting in Saint Andrews, N.B., labour leaders from across the country united to deliver a message to Canada’s Premiers – collaboration is critical.

“Canada’s Premiers will soon be asked to support a Pharmacare plan built on a simple principle – equal access. No matter where in Canada you live, you should be able to access the medications you require to live a healthy life,” said Chris Buckley, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL).

Expert urges healthcare givers to dispose medical waste properly

July 16, 2018

Mr Kolawole Ogunleye, an Environmental Health Expert, on Saturday urged healthcare givers and institutions to engage in proper management and disposal of medical waste to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

Dr. Atul Gawande: Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan venture will tackle 3 types of healthcare waste

July 2, 2018

Atul Gawande, MD, a surgeon at Boston-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital who was named CEO of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase’s health company last week, said the corporation will take aim at healthcare intermediaries and attempt to tackle three types of waste prominent in the industry, Bloomberg reports.

The venture, which the companies announced in January, will seek to develop ways to improve care for the three companies’ more than 1 million employees who receive health insurance from their respective employers. If their efforts are successful, the companies will reportedly make those innovations freely available to other firms, according to the report.

‘Tough’ Harden shredder can tackle medical waste

June 25, 2018

Given the world’s rapidly growing population, the medical waste management sector shows a lot of promise, so Peter Xiaoquan-Chen of Harden Shredding & Recycling Technology told Recycling International at the recent IFAT trade show in Munich. He cites figures saying that more than 2 million tons of medical waste is generated all around the world every year.

Medicine Adherence Data Will Transform Healthcare Provision Worldwide

June 21, 2018

Patient data, when used in the right way can decrease healthcare costs by reducing waste, improve patient quality of life, and ultimately save lives. Medicine adherence data in combination with patient data can go a step further to improve patient experience and satisfaction, increase medicine safety and usability. Improving data quality and analysis can be effective in areas such as predictive medicine, patient relationship management, management of healthcare and measuring the effectiveness of certain treatments.

Medical Waste Management Market Analysis and Research Report 2018

June 19, 2018

Global Medical Waste Management Market will cross USD 29,644.80 million by 2025. It was valued at USD 19,690.00 million in 2017. The market is growing at a CAGR of 5.4% in the forecast period 2018 to 2025.

The major factors driving the growth of this market are rise in generation of healthcare waste, growing healthcare industry, importance of medical waste management, ecofriendly waste management procedures and growing government initiatives. On the other hand lack of awareness about health hazards and lack of skilled professionals for proper disposal may hinder the growth of the global medical waste management market.

Innovative hazardous waste management system launched in South Africa

June 4, 2018

Healthcare institutions have a legal duty to ensure that their hazardous waste is managed responsibly.

As stipulated in the Proposed National Health Care Risk Waste Management Regulations (2018), the person in charge of a health establishment must ensure that health care waste is handled, collected, transported, removed, treated and disposed of in such a manner that it does not pose a risk to human health and the environment. To monitor for compliance, the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) requires that waste generators keep detailed records on the waste management chain.

Medical Waste Management Market Estimated to Exhibit 5% CAGR Through 2025

May 28, 2018

The global medical waste management market was valued at over 10 Bn in 2016 and is expected to expand at the CAGR of above 5% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2025. Increase in incidence and prevalence of infectious and life style diseases, rapidly growing population, rise in healthcare expenditure, and adoption of novel technologies to treat the diseases are the major factors responsible for rise in the generation of medical waste.