THE EFFECTS OF HOSPITAL EFFLUENT DISCHARGES ON THE QUALITY OF WATER

Abstract

Wastewater which comes from the hospital is very dangerous for the environment if the hazardous waste is disposed to the river without a proper treatment. The current research will investigate the common pollutant that is generated from the hospital wastewater such as BOD, COD, TSS, Phosphorus, Ammonia, total pH, Microbacterial, and some of the heavy metals such as Zn, Cu, and Fe. And, it is compared with the National 
Water Quality Index of Malaysia and Environmental Quality Act (EQA) 1974 for the allowable range of healthy water in current river which is connected with hospital sewerage system. The experimental method is used to take the concentration of each element and the result is very significant because the concentration from the hospital sewerage system is very high such as 16.84 mg/L BOD, 60.67 mg/L COD, TSS is 0.01 mg, 6 mg/L NH3 –N, 3.22 mg/L PO4 3- . Except the result for Microbacterial and pH which is 10.67 CFU and pH is 6.43. And heavy metals concentration such as Fe, Cu and Zn is very satisfied which is Fe is 0.02 mg/L, Cu is 1.03 mg/L and Zn is 0.20 mg/L.  All the result is compared to the National Water Quality Index of Malaysia and Environmental Quality Act 1974. 

Keywords: Experimental Method, Hospital Wastewater, Heavy metals, Urban Sewerage system, River, Total Coliform