Karachi, December 22, 2019: A team of Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) visited recently Liaquat National Hospital to monitor its hospital waste management (HWM) system and found that insufficient measures were being taken to comply with Hospital Waste Management (HWM) Rules 2014 to dispose of its medical waste.
On the directives of Advisor to CM Sindh on Law, Environment, Climate Change and Coastal Development Barrister Murtuza Wahab, apart from taking measures to control various types of environmental pollution, all small and big, private and public hospitals of the province are also being monitored regularly to make them comply with the concerned Sections of Sindh Environmental Protection Act 2014 (SEP Act 2014).
The team of SEPA headed by its Additional DG Waqar Hussain Phulpoto asked the representative of the hospital Bashir Ahmed – who earlier briefed the team on their HWM procedure – to remove minor deficiencies found in their HWM system with particular reference to waste segregation and storage processes.
The team observed that while segregating the infectious and hazardous waste from municipal waste authorized guidelines are not fully followed which ultimately puts the health of workers engaged in the subject task under risk. Also, team pointed out, municipal waste may be kept fully safe from the hazards of medical waste during segregation process to avoid likelihood of spread of harmful germs through it.
SEPA team also observed that storage arrangements for medical waste before sending it to incineration are also deficient of certain measures to ensure control of its likely harmful effects on its surrounding environment.
Hospital has been asked to submit details of its HWM procedure for its further scrutiny to ensure full compliance from all aspects of environmental regulations of the province.
It may be pointed out that if any manufacturing or service providing unit which falls under the ambit of SEP Act 2014 is found having minor level of deficiencies while complying with authorized guidelines then instead of issuing on it any formal notice it is just verbally asked to address the issue pointed out by the regulator.
Under Section 14 of SEP Act 2014 recycling, reuse and dumping of all types of hazardous and infectious waste is strictly prohibited while their handling, transportation and safe disposal must be done in compliance with authorized guidelines. Failing which violator may be penalized heavily and if violation continues then further penalty on per day basis may be imposed on it.
For managing hospital waste safely, SEPA has already issued guidelines which are called Sindh Hospital Waste Management Rules 2014 which can be found at its website.
