Hospitals lack proper mechanism to dispose biomedical wastes
Biomedical wastes disposed at Vijaya Talkies lane in Hanamkonda.
Warangal: Untreated biomedical waste has become a serious health hazard in Warangal city. Even as the indiscriminate disposal of the waste by hospitals and research institutions is spreading serious diseases in the city, no concerned organisation is interested in taking any remedial measure. Biomedical waste is dumped haphazardly at many open places and residential areas like Vijaya talkies lane and many other areas. The infectious and non-infectious wastes are dumped together on the premises of the hospitals.
Large portion of sewage in the city flows through open drains and during the recent spell of rains, sewage got mixed with biomedical waste. It was pointed out that biomedical waste should not be allowed to mix with sewage. The hospitals must set up the waste disposal facility and it is the duty of the PCB to ensure that the hospital wastes are not disposed of through municipal waste.
The hospitals does not have any facility to treat infectious waste.
All types of wastes are collected in common bins and are disposed either inside the hospital grounds or in the dumpster. The open dumping of these wastes makes rag pickers more vulnerable to serious health hazards.There are two ways of dealing with clinical wastes - one is to sterilise it at high temperature steam (autoclaving) and the other is to burn it at high temperature (incineration). Ironically, no hospital in Warangal is employing any of these methods to treat the wastes. The hospitals don't have a proper waste management system to dispose the waste as they don't have trained people to manage waste and also due to paucity of funds.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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