Dispose of hospital waste safely

All across the country hospital waste – infectious and hazardous – is being treated mostly like municipal waste or its many contents like syringes, bottles, utensils etc are illegally being reused or recycled which may cause fatal diseases including HIV positive, hepatitis etc

In most parts of the Pakistan no proper practices are adopted to dispose of hospital waste under environmentally safe method – incineration or autoclave – and it is being treated just like the civic waste. As a result not only collectors of such waste but people staying around it including patients, paramedics and general visitors are most vulnerable to various infectious germs and bacteria that are carried by it in abundance.

Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997 and Hospital Waste Management Rules 2005 strictly prohibit unsafe disposal of all types of hospital/hazardous waste including hospital waste failing which violator can be prosecuted for fine and/or imprisonment.

The most unfortunate aspect of the issue is that the most aware community of our society the doctors and hospital owners are avoiding to follow green laws and unabashed leaving the patients and their staff members at the mercy of the infectious diseases that sprout from hospital waste.

The weaker mechanism to implement the environmental laws in country is the main reasons of open mismanagement of hospital waste all across the country. Apart from a few big hospitals rest of the hospitals, clinics and dispensaries are turning deaf ear to the legal requirement and just to spare a few pennies they are disposing of their hospital waste just like normal civic waste.

On the call of their own conscience, all hospitals, clinics, laboratories, dispensaries, pharmacies, nursing homes, blood banks, autopsy centers, mortuaries, medical research institutes and veterinary institutions including any other facility involved in healthcare and bio-medical activities must dispose of hospital/clinical waste through procedures as prescribed under Hospital Waste Management Rules 2005.