Comparative analysis of environmental costs associated with the management of solid waste at two hospitals in the region of Serra Gaucha, Brazil.

Abstract

The specific characteristics of hospital organizations, the limitation of financial resources in the public sector and the tendency in the rise of health expenses, require the adoption of management models that satisfactory responds to the demands of the society for a better quality and wider coverage of health services. The use of information on costs to support hospital managers in the accomplishment of their managerial mission, in line with limited financial resources, is a target that can be achieved through environmental costs. Costs related to the management of wastes generated by medical services have not been accurately investigated, leading to a lack of information in this field, fundamental for decision-making. This study was developed in two Hospitals in the municipality of Caxias do Sul, State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil and surveyed their total environmental cost, which includes costs of environmental activities, waste collection, treatment and external disposal and environmental-related taxes. The Activity Based Cost – ABC was used to analyze the costs included in the management system. The most expensive environmental activity was the waste separation, due to the human resources and different materials involved in this stage in both hospitals. It was verified that although the supply of services is similar, the private hospital funded by SUS (Brazilian Unified Health System) has an additional cost of US$ 0.35 per patient to manage their wastes in relation to the public hospital, and that the treatment by the generation source, taken into consideration the situations analyzed, is more economically and environmentally advantageous.