Medical waste poses serious health hazards in Nizamabad

Nizamabad: Medical waste disposal in the erstwhile Nizamabad district is posing health hazards for the people as it is not being done in a scientific way.

Hospital waste is being disposed of in public spaces, drains and various commercial and residential areas in various towns such as Kamareddy, while the officials blink. Hospitals, maternity homes, private clinics and dental practitioners throw medical waste, including disposable syringes, bags for intravenous fluids and other items, used during treatment in the open. The waste can also be seen dumped along the sides of roads, including Ekachakra colony, Ambedkar Nagar and Bhodan bypass, Yellareddy fire station and Ambedkar Chowrasta, Nagaram Borgsamwagu and Nizamabad.

Speaking to Hans India, the lower-rung sanitation staff in Nizamabad and Kamareddy pointed out that lack of proper incineration of hospital waste has been posing serious threats of infectious diseases to the people in Nizamabad and Kamareddy districts.

They said they are forced to lift the medical waste which makes them vulnerable to serious ailments. But officials are silent on this issue, they allege. A local practising doctor pointed out that medical waste is a serious threat to anyone getting in contact with it. He said normally, 15 to 20 percent of healthcare waste is infectious while about 80 to 85 per cent is non-infectious.

But non-segregation makes the waste 100 per cent infectious. According to the sources in the Pollution Control Board (PCB) 40 per cent of private and 73 per cent of public hospitals are disposing of medical waste through dumping, while the rate of using incinerators is four and 17 per cent among private and public hospitals, respectively.

Earlier, the PCB had found in Nizamabad, Armoor, Bhodan, Kamareddy, Yellareddy, Banswada and Balkonda that lack of proper management of healthcare waste occurs at all levels from segregation to its final disposal. About 9.33 tons of waste is produced on a weekly basis by these hospitals in the erstwhile Nizamabad district.

There is a government hospital waste disposal plant in Padakal village of Jakhranpally mandal. The villagers of Padakal and the neighbouring villagers had earlier raised concerns that the hospital's waste treatment unit should be removed because it pollutes the environs of their village. Interestingly, two-thirds of the plants are reported to be non-functional. In Nizamabad and Kamareddy districts, there has been no system of segregation and colour coding of waste and no standard operation procedure is in place. Experts say the staff handling the medical waste should be qualified persons from the environmental sciences. But no hospital has qualified and trained staff to handle medical waste management.