ISLAMABAD, Feb 2: Federal Minister for Health Muhammad Nasir Khan on Friday said the government would soon implement healthcare waste management project.

Speaking as a chief guest at a workshop on: ‘development of national plan on healthcare waste management in Pakistan’ organized by the ministry of health and WHO the minister said the project would be implemented by the government in collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Centre for Environment Health Activities.

He said the steering committee of this project in collaboration with stakeholders would give a comprehensive evidence-based implementation plan to enforce the law in hospitals.

“It is desire of the government to see every child, mother, elder and poor protected against the infectious diseases like Hepatitis B, C and HIV,” he added.

Giving details about the issue he said the burden of communicable disease was around 43 per cent having cumulative prevalence of Hepatitis B and C of being around 4-6 per cent.

He further emphasised that provision of safe healthcare and healthcare waste management was the duty of every healthcare provider whether in public or private sector.

The overall generation of hospitals wastes in the country from both public and private hospitals can be estimated roughly at about 1 kg/bed/day, he added.

He said mixing of the infectious wastes components like blood, swabs, with the non-infectious component and transfer to communal containers provided by the municipality at roadsides is the common practice in the hospitals.

Primary collection operation is performed manually by almost untrained staff and wastes transferred manually or with the help of handcarts to communal storage points, he added.

The Minister said waste from these communal storage locations were transferred along with other municipal wastes to disposal sites.

He said government had notified Hospital Waste Management Rules 2005, which were being implemented by federal and provincial governments. However, it had been felt that there is a need of assistance in the implementation process, he added.

Director Health Services Academy Professor Shakila Zaman highlighted the contributions made by the academy and the ministry in developing the Hospital Waste Management Rules and guidelines. Country Representative WHO Dr Khalif Bile gave briefing on WHO’s contributions for the current project and situation of healthcare waste management in Pakistan.

The workshop was attended by participants from the federal and provincial governments, NGOs, private and public hospitals policy makers and implementing agencies.