Kurnool: Kurnool Government General Hospital, the only major government hospital in Rayalaseema region catering to patients from Kadapa, Kurnool, Chittoor, Anantapur and erstwhile Mahbubnagar district in Telangana state, has violated medical effluent treatment norms and causing health hazards to citizens.
Particularly the handling of biomedical waste like syringes, disposables, used cotton wads and bodily fluids are treated unscientifically and thrown into the Handri and Tungabhadra river beds. Quite often they burn the waste within the hospital premises which has raised an alarm among the patients and environmentalists.
Biomedical waste includes bodily fluids and other medical waste, which is generated from patients with infectious diseases. The antibiotics, psychotropic substances and other drugs consumed by patients are not fully ingested and they are excreted that eventually find their way into the drainage system.
Eventually, such infectious and often toxic waste, end up in our drainage system, which in turn has the potential to become ideal breeding grounds for vectors and spread infection.
Pollution Control Board which supervises the government hospitals and private hospitals set out norms saying that effluents be treated and disinfected by chemical treatment before they are let out into the drains. Or, hospitals with a capacity of more than 50 or 100 beds need to have an Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) to treat the effluents generated by them.
Kurnool Government General Hospital is spending close to Rs 55 lakhs per month on hospital upkeep including waste management. The contract has been given to a private agency.
As per terms of the contract, the implementing agency had to supply disposable bags and coloured baskets for removal of biomedical waste in the hospital. Contrary to this, the contractor had not supplied bags and baskets which had resulted in no segregation of waste.
When contacted, Pollution Control Board Zonal Office head T. Rajender Reddy said that, being a government hospital they are supposed to be a model for other hospitals.
Basically two types of wastes they have to segregate. One is disposable waste and the other is solid waste. PCB is mulling action against the hospital for their waste management practices which are contrary to the guidelines prescribed under the act, he said.
The Hospital authorities need to change their mindset. Based on the bed strength, a small fee is levied on them for dumping their waste. J.C.Babu, a scientist of Central Pollution Control Board, which works under the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change, said that new biomedical waste management rules will change the way country used to manage this waste earlier.
Speaking to this correspondent on the sidelines of a two-day state-level seminar on New Waste Management Rules on Thursday, Mr Babu said that Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016 have gone for a thorough change and now mandates bar code system for proper control. The ambit of the rules has been expanded to include vaccination camps, blood donation camps, surgical camps or any other health care activity.
On biomedical waste treatment practices of Kurnool General Hospital, he said that it was totally against the prescribed practices for hospitals and Pollution Control Board state-level officials would be assigned to file a report on the matter.
