Risk Assessment of Hospital Waste Water Treatment Plant Operation – A Case Study of a Class B Hospital in Indonesia

Very minimal risk assessment studies focus specifically on wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) operations and none on hospitals WWTP.Hospital waste contains complex chemicals and pathogenic organisms.Thus, any disruption of hospital WWTP operation is potentially very harmful to environmental health and safety.Risk management can prevent any undue effect and minimize operational mishaps, thus becoming even more critical when the amount of hospital waste increases due to the rise in bed occupancy.Hence, this study aims to assess the risk of hospital WWTP operation, with a class B hospital in Indonesia chosen as a case study.A risk register was created using a combination of safety audits, historical data, and semi-structured interviews.Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) were used to examine the impacts of each risk, the frequency of occurrence, and the existing detection for each failure.Based on the consequences, the risks were categorized into impacting humans, finance, the environment, or a combination of those three.After considering occurrence, severity, and detection, each risk was assigned a Risk Priority Number (RPN).The evaluation revealed 1 unacceptable risk, 14 undesirable risks, and 19 acceptable risks.Risk management methods were proposed for unacceptable and tolerated risks.The case study provides materials for the hospital management to aid in decision-making regarding the WWTP.It also contributes knowledge for WWTP benchmarking.