Patna hospitals, residents flout medical waste disposal norms

PATNA: Despite repeated advisories issued by the state health department and Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB), the city hospitals are defying the medical waste disposal norms.
Discarded medical waste, including gloves, tissues, headgears, face masks, syringes and personal protective equipment were found lying in the heap of garbage outside the city hospitals, including Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH), which is a designated Covid-19 health facility in Patna, and Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH).
NMCH principal Dr Vijay Kumar Gupta told this newspaper that action would be taken against those who throw the medical waste in trash without following the protocol. “Direction has been issued to deputy superintendent for proper disposal of medical waste,” he said.
BSPCB chairman Ashok Ghosh told this newspaper that they, in association with UNICEF (Bihar), are going to sanitize the biomedical waste collection centres, quarantine centres, Covid-19 treatment centres and testing centres. “We will make the officials concerned aware about the disposal of biomedical waste through webinar from May 19. After the awareness, we would start inspections at several health facilities to ensure that biomedical waste should not be dumped casually as it can spread the virus,” he said.
Meanwhile, masks and gloves used by the residents as safety precautions against Covid-19 virus are increasingly becoming a problem for Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) sanitation workers, who find these items in street trash. After using the protective gears, people discard them in the open.
Even though the PMC has provided black plastic bags to sanitation workers, these were not being used. “Every day I collect 4-5 gloves and more than 20 homemade masks in the trash from SK Puri locality in New Capital circle. People simply throw these items in the trash,” said N K Shukla, a door-to-door garbage collector of the civic body.
Prashant, another sanitation worker, said, “We keep the black plastic bags for medical waste, but residents just put wet, dry and medical waste in one dustbin. It is impossible for us to segregate these items.”
The PMC, in collaboration with UNFPA, Bihar, had given training to sanitation workers about the waste disposal and provided them protective gears and black plastic bags.
PMC commissioner Himanshu Sharma said initially people followed the instructions of keeping the discarded gloves, masks and tissues in separate bags for trash collection. “After a while, they became careless and started throwing it on the road or even mixed with other trash. We have extended the training programme for sanitation workers till May 30. Besides, we are going to make public aware through social media or by distributing pamphlets about the harms in throwing medical waste on roads,” he told this newspaper.
Sheila Irani, additional municipal commissioner of PMC, said the sanitation workers are creating awareness among the residents, but the people still throw the gloves or masks on the road. “How can we stop them. A worker collects the garbage from households and dispose it of at landfill site as per the provision,” she said.