Treatment efficiencies of on-site hospital wastewater treatment plants and the quality of effluent discharged to a centralized municipal wastewater treatment plant

This study aims to evaluate the removal efficiency of microbial contaminants from two hospitals on site WWTPs in Saudi Arabia. Hospital wastewaters often goes untreated in Saudi Arabia as in many devolving countries, were no specific regulations are imposed regarding hospital wastewaters treatment. The current guidelines are placed to ensure a safe treated wastewater quality, however, it do not detect pathogenic bacteria and emerging contaminants. Results from this study had detected pathogenic bacterial genera and antibiotic resistance bacteria in the sampled hospitals wastewater. And although the treatment process of one of the hospitals was able to meet current quality guidelines, the other hospital treatment process had failed to meet these guidelines and might be of concern. Furthermore, in order to estimate the risk on the public health and the impact of discharging the treated effluent to the public sewage, a comprehensive investigation is needed and suggestions for more detailed guidelines and monitoring.