KARACHI: The absence of Sindh health department officials and alarming discrepancies between waste treatment needs of different hospitals and the type of incinerators the government intended to import for these facilities marked the proceedings of a public hearing held on Tuesday at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC).

The event was organised by the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) to hear out stakeholders’ concerns over a health department project under which eight incinerators would be procured from the UK, installed and operated at public sector hospitals in five districts.

Four of these health facilities are located in Karachi and incinerators would be installed within their premises. These facilities are: Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), National Institute of Child Health Karachi (NICH), Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital and Sindh Government Lyari General Hospital.

No health dept official was present in the public hearing organised by Sepa

Other hospitals to get incinerators are located in Jamshoro (Liaquat University Hospital), Sukkur (Ghulam Mohammad Mahar Medical College Hospital), Larkana (Chandka Medical College Hospital) and Shaheed Benazirabad (Peoples Medical College Hospital).

The health department would execute the project through Vertex Medical (Pvt) Ltd whereas project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been carried out by Islamabad-based Project Procurement International (PPI).

The programme focused on the installation of incinerators at four of the city’s hospitals. It began with a presentation on the project and its EIA report by Ali Abdullah representing the PPI.

Rs218.17m project to be completed in four months

The information shared during the programme showed that the total project cost is Rs218.171 million and that the construction for installing incinerators would begin simultaneously at respective hospitals and be completed in four months.

The incinerator manufactured by Addfield Incinerate Cremate (Addfield Environmental Systems Limited), United Kingdom, can be operated continuously for 12 hours daily.

This incinerator (model number MP-500), it was stated, was specifically designed for medical waste and considered the most robust and reliable medical incinerator in the market. It would treat 100kg waste per hour producing 2kg of waste.

“The concentration of all ambient air quality parameters were monitored for 24 hours at project sites and found within the limits of Sindh Environmental Quality Standards. The noise level, however, was noticeably high,” said Mr Abdullah of PPI, informing the audience that 98 per cent emissions were smokeless and that each incinerator was equipped with efficient air pollution control devices.

He also listed a series of mitigation measures that could help minimise environmental impact of the project.

As the floor opened for the question-answer session, a series of concerns were raised ranging from the present unsafe practices of waste handling at hospitals to the type of incinerators the government intended to purchase under the project, none of which received satisfactory replies.

In fact, at one point, the whole exercise of public hearing seemed useless when the forum, after hearing detailed arguments from some stakeholders, developed a kind of consensus on the point that the type of incinerator the health department intended to import had limited capacity and would not meet the waste treatment needs of big hospitals like JPMC and CHK and others having more than 1,000 beds.

“The UK-based company manufacturing MP-500 incinerators clearly states on its website that it is best suited for facilities of between 600 and 1,000 beds (and equivalent). The incinerator can only handle 600kg of waste per day.

“[On] the same website, it is also stated that this type of incinerator is specifically designed for safely incinerating hazardous (only) high moisture biological red bag waste, contrary to what the project proponent intends to do,” said Dr Syed Raza Ali Gardezi of the Citizens for Environment.

Citing specific text in the report, he questioned whether the import order for incinerators had already been placed, while suggesting that the project proponent should have explored the possibility of installing locally made incinerators.

A major flaw identified in the EIA report was its reliance on a 2001 study to determine the quantity of waste daily generated by an in-house patient.

A concern raised over the project’s transparency that whether any tender for the project was given remained unanswered as there was no one to represent the health department.

Reservations regarding safe disposal of generated ash and its possible impact on the surrounding population were also shared during the programme.

Zahid Farooq of the Urban Resource Centre regretted that the JPMC staff whose residences were located close to the incinerator site had not been invited to the hearing.

In reply to a few questions, the JPMC and the NICH, represented by Dr Yahya Tunio and Dr Jamal Raza, respectively, told the audience that the “waste generated at their health facilities is segregated and properly disposed of”.

Concluding the event, Sepa’s Waqar Hussain Phulpoto also noted with concern a number of errors/gaps in the EIA report and assured the audience on behalf of his department that the environmental watchdog would ensure that “the report contains proper data” and the project met requirement of each hospital.

Dr Gul Munir of the CHK, Dr Seemin Jamali of the JPMC, Dr Naveed Ahmed Sheikh of the LGH and Waris Ali Gabol of Sepa also participated in the programme.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2019