HYDERABAD, Sept 26: A non-government organisation (NGO) working for the improvement in hospital waste management system at the Liaquat University hospitals in Hyderabad and Jamshoro has formed a waste management team.

The administrator of the NGO, Umeed Foundation, Dr Gulzar Usman, said in a statement issued here on Friday that under the Hospital Waste Management Rules 2005 notified by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency, big hospitals especially the tertiary health care facilities were bound to devise their own waste management systems.

He, however, deplored that the rule was not being implemented in most of the public as well as the private sector hospitals across the country.

He said that Umeed Foundation, a partner NGO of the UNDP GEF/SGP was working on a project under the grant of the UNDP GEF/SGP Pakistan, which aimed at introducing positive and revolutionary changes to this critical but neglected area of the health sector.

He said that hospital waste management was a must for the improvement of environment and for the reduction of hazards posed by the unchecked disposal of infectious hospital waste.

As a part of their planned activities, Umeed Foundation has started a well-organised series of awareness and counselling sessions and has motivated the hospital administration for the formation of the first-ever waste management team in the history of the Liaquat University hospitals in Hyderabad and Jamshoro.

The team in question, he said, comprised 28 members, including doctors (registrar administration), MS, AMS, Umeed, EPA and municipal corporation representatives and few lower staff representatives involved in the waste management system of the hospitals.

Dr Usman said that the medical superintendent would head the team and the AMS (vigilance) would act as the secretary/waste management officer. This team in collaboration with Umeed Foundation and the UNDP GEF/SGP Pakistan would run the entire waste management system, he added.

He claimed that with the formation of the team the Liaquat University Hospital would not only be implementing the hospital waste management rules, but it would also become one of the few hospitals in the country that have a state-of-the-art system of waste management.

He said that the credit went not only to Umeed Foundation Hyderabad but also to the UNDP GEF/SGP Pakistan, which had provided technical support to the hospital administration in the formation of the team.