LARKANA: There are growing fears that most of the hospital waste either makes its way to scrap dealers or ends up in canals and garbage dumping sites since majority of private and government healthcare facilities in Larkana do not send their garbage to incinerators to be disposed of.

Out of the four machines, one incinerator is functioning at Chandka Medical College Hospital and the other at Shaikh Zayed Hospital for Women, according to sources.

The remaining two machines delivered to CMCH in 2018 had been lying idle since their arrival. The LPG-run incinerators have a capacity to burn 60 kilogram waste.

CMCH Medical Superintendent Dr Niaz Dahar confirmed that out of four machines two were coping with the demand. The other two, one which was one was installed in 2007 and the other in 2021, were non-functional and required minor repairs, he said.

Sources said that the filter system of the incinerator installed at CMCH was not powerful enough to control smog and thanks to Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) committee of the hospital, work on repairs and upgradation of its filter system and other parts was in its final stage.

The other incinerator at Shaikh Zayed Hospital for Women had capacity of burning 50 kilogram waste. Of the two incinerators one was lying idle at the Shaikh Zayed hospital under its ramp and the other was sitting behind medical ward in CMCH (city block), said the sources.

The sources in the hospital said that the machines’ vital parts were being pilfered away and if serious attention was not paid to their repairs the machines would get totally inoperable.

The two incinerators required a small ventilated room plus storage area, electricity connection, operator and sanitary worker, which could not be arranged since the machines’ arrival in 2018, said the sources.

They said that a room had been constructed in the past for the incinerators but it was then allotted to nutrition programme of the Sindh government. It was learnt that in a recent meeting of health officials with Larkana deputy commissioner, the MS of the hospital had proposed to shift the machines to CMCH.

A proposal was put forward to replace the old incinerator installed in CMCH with the newer one to ensure environmental protection but it did not materialise, said the sources.

Head of IPC section of the hospital, Dr Marvi Qazi, painted a bleak picture of waste management and said they received little cooperation from private medical centres, blood banks and pathology laboratories working in the city.

She said that two operational incinerators could burn 60 kg and 50 kg, respectively, of the hospital waste in one session. When she joined the department in December 2023,

45 private medical centres, blood banks, and pathology laboratories were registered with the CMCH but the hospital waste was collected hardly from only four to five points. Now 92 were registered but only 30 to 35 centres were sending the waste regularly while others were depositing zero kg waste to be burnt, she said.

The hospital administration said that Sindh government was taking keen interest in the installation of non-functional incinerators in order to improve the hospital waste management in Larkana.

Shockingly, sanitary workers were involved in clandestinely collecting the hospital waste and hiding it at secret places inside the hospitals and at certain locations outside the hospitals, said the sources.

They sold this waste to scrap dealers risking reuse syringes, drip sets and other material and making them a potential source of spreading diseases like HIV, hepatitis and others.

The sources in SIUT Day Care Dialysis Centre said that as a routine they handed over the hospital waste systematically and as per set protocol to the IPC centre and kept its record as well.

Dr Qazi confirmed it and said 60 kg hospital waste came from the SIUT on alternate days while 80kg was collected from SICVD and Trauma Centre regularly for burning in incinerators. Disposing of the waste unscientifically put society at risk of catching infections, she said.

She said that the hospital collected a meagre registration fee from private medical centres, laboratories and blood banks to run the machines. But only 22 to 24 centres were paying the fee regularly, she said.

She said that a separate hospital waste transport vehicle would be arranged for Larkana hospitals with the collaboration of Sindh government and Indus Health and Hospital Networks for safe transport of the waste to the incinerator at CMCH.

It was the need of the hour to have central sterilisation system and a helpline for the hospital waste, she said adding surprise crackdown on private medical centres, pathological laboratories and blood banks be carried out to rectify the situation.

The hospital’s administration disclosed that the proposal for central sterilisation services unit was in the pipeline in health department. CMCH’s IPC committee also suggested clamping down on the activities of sanitary workers working in government hospitals and private centres, and keeping an eye on the scrap dealers who more often purchased hospital waste from them, scavengers and drug addicts, said the sources.

The sources said that help should be sought from Sindh Health Care Commission, deputy commissioner and the district health officers, all other stakeholders including environmental protection agencies to streamline and strengthen the system of properly disposing of the hospital waste.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2025