LAHORE, July 4: The local governments in the Punjab have failed to handle hospital waste in their respective areas despite an action plan provided by the Punjab Environment Protection Department last year.

The EPD’s action plan called for regularly organizing seminars and workshops for hospital employees to educate them on clinical waste, which has been adversely affecting environment. Training of waste handlers, supervisors, drivers and operators was also proposed.

The EPD recommended procurement of equipment and material, and storage of clinical waste separately from the other wastes. It also called for a ban on the use of polythene containers and promotion of containers of different groups with suitable colour codes and stripes.

The department asked the local governments to design an incineration facility according to the total hospital waste. Proposal to ban the open burning of hazardous gases like dioxin, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, sulphur trioxides and nitrogen oxides having deleterious effect on nose, throat, brain and lungs was also discussed.

However, the local government reportedly has not allocated a specific amount for designing the incineration facility at its hospitals. The city district government has allocated over Rs350 million for the health sector, but without fixing any amount to fight this particular problem.

Meanwhile, the Solid Waste Management has announced that it will recover waste disposal charges from hospitals and clinics lacking scientific facilities for this purpose.

The city district government has 10,000 sanitary employees, who are at a risk to contract any lethal disease. Similar is the case with thousands of scavengers collecting medical disposables from infectious waste dumped in containers.

In addition to the infectious clinical waste produced by the local government hospitals, tons of waste are being generated by the public and private hospitals, clinics and laboratories in the province.

Almost all the public and private hospitals treat the clinical waste as common trash and dump it in the local government’s skips or throw it by the roadsides or at any place away from the city.

According to a survey, more than 85 tons of clinical waste are being produced daily. The rate of daily generation per bed is 1.8 kilograms. As many as 115 public and private hospitals produce about 3.5 tons of infectious clinical waste every day. Three private hospitals — United Christian Hospital, Shalamar Hospital and Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre — and a public — Shaikh Zayed Hospital in th city — have installed incinerators for the disposal of waste.

When contacted, EDO (health) Dr Abdul Qayyum said the UCH, and Shalamar hospitals offered their services to the CDG’s hospitals and the latter was considering it. He added that the CDG was organizing seminars and distributing literature to educate the hospital staff.

The EPD had asked the Punjab health department last year to install incinerators at Mayo and Services hospitals, but no action has been taken so far.

Different studies suggest that around 45 per cent diseases in the province are due to the preventable infectious diseases.

Medical experts say the infectious waste — pathological waste, tissues, blood, surgical dressing, disposable gloves, chemotherapy and pharmaceutical waste, cotton swabs, soiled dressing from treatment area and waste from operation theatres — is being dumped without any proper arrangements. It is a threat to the hospital employees as well as those living nearby.

“Every 10th person in the country is suffering from hepatitis B and the incidence of hepatitis C is almost similar,” they add.

Scavengers pick up hospital waste and sell it to unscrupulous traders, who re-cycle the material or get it reusable after packing it afresh. Drug addicts also collect syringes and reuse these.

Different hospitals reportedly auction the infectious clinical waste to private parties, which collect it from all over the hospital and re-cycle or pack it afresh for reuse.