Comparative assessment of indoor air quality and comfort parameters in government and non-government hospitals in southwestern Bangladesh

Abstract

Indoor air quality (IAQ) is considered crucial in the hospital environment for the health improvement of the patients and the well-being of all the staff and visitors. Despite that, in a lot of hospitals in developing and underdeveloped countries, IAQ is severely impaired by different factors. The lower-income people are mostly dependent on the government-subsidized public hospital, and that necessarily creates a huge number of patients and gatherings and results in impaired IAQ. In this study, nine hospital wards were selected from one public and one private hospital in the southwestern part of Bangladesh to compare the IAQ with respect to the outdoor values. Five IAQ parameters (PM2.5, PM10, VOC, CO2, and HCHO) and three indoor comfort parameters (temperature, relative humidity, and noise) were assessed at three different times of the day (morning, midday, and after noon). The results suggested that PM2.5, PM10, and CO2 were significantly higher in the private hospital units (48.59±12.34µg/m3, 65.27±14.18µg/m3, and 721.13±159.20ppm, respectively) than the public hospital units. In contrast, temperature and relative humidity were found to be slightly lower in the private hospital units (RH: 81.80±1.29%, T: 31.27±1.24 °C) than in the public hospital units. The detected noise level was significantly higher in each hospital's indoor units than the outdoor units. The I/O ratio suggests most contamination sources are indoors for the private hospital units, while the toxicity potential found considerable health implications for those indoor locations.