[ALOCHONA] Successful health ministry

Medical waste up for sale

Experts raise health alert as hazardous waste come back into market without proper sterilisation



Clockwise from left, A cleaner of BSMMU hospital sells medical waste right at one of its gate. A trader of Old Dhaka gathers used up syringes to make them ready for reselling. A scavenger picks medical waste from a dustbin. These photos were taken recently
 
It is no secret. Anyone walking by the west gate of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) will see cleaners in red dresses sell medical waste to vendors. During a visit to the university on March 9, this correspondent found a man bargaining with a cleaner by the gate around 11:00am.

Farida, the cleaner, said over the past six years she has been working at BSMMU and doing the trade but never considered it unlawful. She was selling syringes, needles, blood bags along with paper and medicine boxes at Tk 20-30 a basket. Abdur Rahim, the buyer, said he sells the items to factories in Old Dhaka. There the syringes are separated out and washed for reselling. All in new packages and without proper sterilisation, they again come onto the market.

Experts say the trend helps spread infectious diseases like hepatitis B and C, tetanus, tuberculosis, skin diseases, jaundice, cholera and even AIDS.The waste includes pathological materials, sharp objects and chemicals.

Contacted, the BSMMU authorities said they signed a contract with PRISM (Project in Agriculture, Rural Industry, Science and Medicine) to start scientific management of medical waste in mid-April.

"At present most of the waste of this hospital is dumped in dustbins of Dhaka City Corporation," said Brig Gen Abdul Majid Bhuiyan, director (hospital) of BSMMU. The rest are burned down in an incinerator.He claimed his staff are not involved in the waste sale. Some outsourced cleaners are doing it and he would take stern action against them.

In the capital, out of an estimated 1,500 hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres, only 342 have scientific waste management facilities and very few in rest of the country.

The DCC in association with PRISM has been working on safe disposal of the waste since 2005 but most of the hospitals hardly showed interest."We can go for safe and scientific disposal of one-seventh of medical waste of the capital. But most hospitals don't want to contact us as they earn a considerable amount by selling the recyclable waste," said Bipon Kumar Saha, chief waste management officer of DCC. He also said in the absence of an appropriate law they cannot take any action against the health centres that are yet to adopt a proper waste management method.

But PRISM Coordinator Tarit Kanti Biswas said the Environment Conservation Act 1995 clearly mentions before going into operation, a hospital must be certified by the Department of Environment (DoE) that it has proper waste management system.

The environment department's monitoring is weak and it widens the scope for the unethical practice, he added. Asked, Abdus Sobhan, additional director general of the Department of Environment (DoE), admitted that many of the health facilities in the city do not have that clearance. He said for lack of manpower they fail to properly monitor the centres. "We are recruiting additional staff. A total of six divisional and 21 district offices have also been established to increase vigilance."

According to experts, the standard way of safe disposal of medical waste is to maintain separate bins for different types of waste -- red bins for sharp objects, yellow for infectious items, black for general wastes and green bins for the recyclable waste.

These materials are supposed to go to the sanitary landfill site separately. Then the recyclable parts should be washed and sterilised in an autoclave machine and the rest destroyed in the incinerators and buried, said Tarit Kanti.

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=180642

__._,_.___

[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com

Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___