Chennai: Among the many challenges confronting the pollution control board in ensuring proper handling of bio-medical healthcare waste, is the fact that they are unable to bring the small, private clinics mushrooming all over the city under their cover.
The Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998, states that it is the duty of every healthcare centre to dispose the waste through their own treatment plant.
TNPCB officials though admit that is not feasible as the cost of setting up such a unit runs into several lakhs and requires a minimum amount of waste for optimal functioning.
According to the officials, a better way to deal with the problem would be through cluster collection of bio-waste.
“If all private clinics in a particular area can collect their segregated waste it become much easier for the private or government player to dispose the waste. In a way, handling biomedical waste is much more of a management issue than a technical one,” the official added.
Another problem which experts say needs to be addressed is proper segregation. While big hospitals, including both private and public, are aware of the segregating procedure, the smaller medical units are not.
“The lower grade staff of a clinic or a hospital in charge of the disposal process, need to be oriented,” said Dr. T. Sundaramoorthy of CPR Environmental Education Centre, who has prepared research reports on biomedical waste management.
“If we are to achieve our target of proper disposal, then waste needs to be segregated 100 percent. In the absence of it, we are forced to involve manual intervention,” said a pollution control board official.
