Expressbuzz
28 October 2009
Thiruvananthapuram, India

The Pollution Control Board (PCB) has decided to close down hospitals, including government hospitals, which are not handling and disposing bio medical and hospital waste properly. This was announced by PCB chairman S.D. Jayaprasad, at a press meet on the sidelines of a national seminar on Hospital and Biomedical Waste Management the other day.

“Only 2,500 hospitals in the State manage hospital waste in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Pollution Control Board. The deadline for taking action against the hospitals which are not handling the bio medical waste in a scientific manner ended in 2002,” he added. When asked whether this was a decision of the government, Jayaprasad said this was the decision of the Board.

“Hospitals create solid and liquid waste. In Palakkad, there is a plant to dump the solid bio medical waste. This is the only plant in Kerala to dispose such waste. The discussions at the seminar indicate that Kerala is an utter failure in hospital waste management,” he said.

“Unsafe disposal of syringes is a major cause of the spreading of communicable diseases all over the world,” said Air Marshal Lalji Varma, founding president of Indian Society of Hospital Waste Management (ISHWM) while presenting a paper on Sharps waste management’ in the seminar on Tuesday.

In India, 16 million children are born every year. As many as 48 million people need injections in a year. People have a tendency to go for an injection even for minor diseases. This must be discouraged, he added.

Learning and giving awareness about waste management, implementing non-burn technology, usage of glass syringes etc are the solutions to control the sharps waste in a hospital. Sharps waste is just one percentage of the total waste of a hospital. But it is harmful to the society. Safe disposal of such wastes and giving security to such waste handlers are still problematic, said Lalji.