KARACHI: Hospitals fail to dispose of waste: Disease spread feared
KARACHI, April 5: The city government has failed to control the sale of hospital waste by government and private hospitals, dispensaries and laboratories to manufacturers, who reintroduce them in the market, spreading fatal diseases like hepatitis B, C and Aids.
A survey conducted by Online revealed that government and private hospitals did not follow the code of conduct in this regard.
According to the survey, there are 2,800 hospitals, dispensaries, clinics and laboratories functioning in the city in the public and private sectors, of which only 130 hospitals and other medical units are cooperating with the city government.
These 130 medical units regularly collect hospital waste for disposing it of at the incinerator plant.
Except for these 130 medical units, the remaining hospitals, dispensaries and laboratories are either selling the waste, particularly syringes, to private companies, or are careless in their disposal.
A large number of hospitals, dispensaries and laboratories just allow garbage pickers to collect waste, who later sell it to private companies or their contractors at a nominal price.
The defunct Karachi Municipal Corporation had installed two incinerator plants near Mewashah graveyard seven years ago for disposal of hospital waste. However, it could not yield any positive results, as a large number of private and government hospitals, and dispensaries did not cooperate with the municipal staff.
Later, a contract was awarded to a private company for collecting hospital waste and dumping it at the city government’s incinerator plant. But this too could not improve the conditions.
Sources claimed that even hospitals and dispensaries run by the city government sold the waste to pharmaceutical companies.
They charged that in government hospitals, the lower staff was involved in this malpractice while in private hospitals, the management itself was allegedly selling the waste for revenue.
Both private and government hospitals usually handed over kitchen garbage instead of hospital waste to the mobile vans of the waste collection unit of the contractor, sources said.
On being contacted, a city government official, while admitting the sale of hospital waste, said the city government had decided to serve legal notices to the hospitals, dispensaries, maternity homes and clinics involved in this unethical business. In this regard, he said the DCO Karachi and EDO Works and Services Department had approved the summary and had forwarded it to the city nazim for final approval.—Online
