Day 339: Burn!

I wanted to share one of my more tangible accomplishments since being deployed here in Afghanistan as a medical mentor. One of the obvious deficiencies here at the Afghan Army clinic is their inability to properly dispose of their medical waste such as contaminated needles and other equipment that has contact with bodily fluids. Currently, all of this medical waste is thrown into the regular trash which poses a significant health risk to the surrounding community. To help curb this problem, I sought out to get a medical waste incinerator installed here on base. Although the process to request and arrange the installation was long and extremely painful, the finished product is finally here!

April 2009, the medical incinerator arrives on post!

June 9th, the foundation is completed

June 14th, the posts are placed and the fencing begins

June 19th, the incinerator is brought over to the site and the building of roof begins

June 20th, fencing is completed

June 29th, the grand opening and first test run! Oooo Ahhh!!

Talk about mission accomplished! I'm glad to see that we have the means necessary to prevent the potential spread of blood-borne illnesses. I just hope that we don't run into issues of the machine breaking in the near future! We'll see.

"Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction."
2 Timothy 4:2