Toxic hospital waste dumped in open

Patna: BMW, this word brings out the picture of a high-end lurxury car. But today, this also means biomedical wastes, which can cost one’s life. The wastes generated from hospitals like syringes, drug bottles, removed plaster and human anatomical parts are termed biomedical wastes (BMW), which are being disposed of in open in a horrible manner by a few private hospitals of the city
A stroll of area around Dinkar Chowk – before the PMC’s Bankipur circle office and near Moin-ul Haq stadium, presented a terrifying picture.Syringes with uncut needles, empty saline water bottles, empty drug bottles, tubes used for medication, blood-soaked cotton, used intravenous catheters, broken slides, everything is being dumped in open.
Some of these wastes are highly toxic and can cause HIV, Hepatitis-B, Hepatitis-C and a number of other diseases. If the plastic material mixed with the waste is burned, gases that can cause cancer are emitted. Worse, even children are active as ragpickers here. All this is going right under the nose of administration as Bankipore circle office of the PMC is located within a walking distance from there.
After being dumped, the waste is segregated by ragpickers. They pick up what can be recycled. Syringes, which are uncut, are sent for recycling, said Rakesh Saran, who has been monitoring the disposal of BMW.
Every private hospital of the city has to give the wastes to the cab of S S Medicals, a private firm that has been outsourced the job of treating BMW. The firm has installed a plant at IGIMS to treat them. For its service, a hospital has to pay Rs 4.70/bed. “To avoid this expenditure, hospitals play with the lives of people,” Saran said.
What is quite worrying is that S S Medical’s plant is shut for the last many days, Saran said. TOI tried to reach Arbind Anju of SS Medicals, but his cell was switched off. TOI spoke to Bihar State Pollution Control Board’s (BSPCB) scientific officer Navin Kumar in this regard. “Yes, the plant was shut down. But today, they have started it.”
The rules allow BSPCB to order closure of hospitals that are not treating BMW properly. Asked if he has done so, Kumar replied in the negative and added, “But we have filed complaint cases. .” Told that the hospitals are continuing with the practice of dumping the waste, he said, “Policing can’t be done on every hospital.” Kumar possibly can’t do much about it because according to a study, not more than 25% hospitals are registered with any government agency.
Saran’s organizations – SIDCON and Toxic Links – did a study recently of private and government health facilities of four districts – Patna, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur and Bhojpur. Forty-seven per cent staff at these facilities had no training whatsoever about BMW management. At 53% facilities, the segregation of waste into five categories – infectious waste, disinfected plastic (blood bags etc), sharps (syringes etc), body parts and others – was not done. To 53% staff, personal protective equipment like gloves and masks were unavailable. Every hospital is supposed to have an interim storage facility till central treatment facility vehicle comes in morning. But 52 per cent had poor interim arrangement.