AHMEDABAD: Tardy medical waste disposal an invitation to AIDS

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Tardy medical waste disposal an invitation to AIDS

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2004 11:41:44 PM ]

RAJKOT/AHMEDABAD/VADODARA: A ward boy and an ayah drag a bag filled

with used IV fluid bottles and syringes to the ground outside the

Ahmedabad Civil Hospital compound. A scrap collector is waiting for

them on a bicycle. He yanks the bag from the ward boy, thrusts Rs 20

in his hand and pushes off.

The ward boy is happy, even after giving Rs 5 commission to the ayah,

he has earned enough to keep him in high spirits in the evening!

But this one is straight out of Ripley's. In Rajkot's Civil Hospital,

doctors, after completing the surgery, wrap the amputated body parts

in cotton and hand it over to the relatives for disposal.

Mountains of medical waste with needles, IV sets, blood bags,

syringes and saline bottles are heaped in the open onto a trash

trolley in the hospital compound where the rag pickers have a field

day.

After years of hue and cry over disposal of medical waste, court

directives and huge expenditure, disposal of hospital waste continues

to be a chronic ailment afflicting hospitals in Gujarat. But what is

more alarming is that lack of a permanent panacea for medical waste

disposal may be exposing innocent people to all kinds of deadly virus

including HIV and Hepatitis.

" Dumping medical waste in the open is giving invitation to all kinds

of diseases for the people who may knowingly or accidentally come in

its contact. In the medical waste, you will have needles with which

people with HIV, Hepatitis and other deadly virus were injected and

rag pickers or other people who come in its contact are at risk, "

says Indian Medical Association president Dr Anil Nayak.

Sources in the medical fraternity say that though chances of

disposable needles being put to re-use are not very high, there is

always a risk, however small, of the same being misused. " The same

may be recycled by quacks or even poor drug addicts, " says a senior

doctor.

The authorities, however, fail to get alarmed as the situation

worsens. In Rajkot, a non-functional incinerator has been silent for

the past fortnight. " If it is a large amputated part, it is given to

the relatives for disposal, otherwise it is just thrown into the

waste basket. There is no alternative, " a senior surgeon tells TNN.

These leftovers are dumped at the Sokada yard on the Rajkot-Kuvadva

highway. N P Sagathiy, the sanitary inspector at the Rajkot Civil

Hospital says that the person who operates the incinerator was on

leave for two weeks and hence it was closed.

In Ahmedabad, ayahs and ward boys can be openly seen selling used IV

fluid bottles to rag pickers and raddi-wallas in the backyard of the

Civil Hospital, VS Hospital and other big hospitals despite

incinerators being functional. The current price of a used IV fluid

bottle is 20 paise. " Employees collect and sell used IV fluid bottles

and injections. It helps them earn an additional Rs 20-30 per day, "

says Rajubhai, who collects waste in hospitals in Ahmedabad.

" Strict measures are initiated to ensure safe disposal of medical

waste. But ayahs and ward boys tend to sell used IV bottles and other

plastic waste to earn a few rupees. In such a big hospital, one would

need to turn it into Tihar Jail to stop these minor pilferages, " a

senior administration official of the hospital says.

In Vadodara too, it is not surprising to find plastic waste from the

hospitals being recycled as many 'pastiwalas' and rag pickers have

easy access to the waste meant for safe disposal. In SSG Hospital,

despite a strict protocol to segregate and dispose waste, pilferage

of plastic waste is common.

But authorities believe otherwise. " SSG Hospital generates about 125-

130 kilos of waste daily,which is exclusive of plastics. The clinical

waste is diverted to in-house incinerators, while domestic waste is

collected by the civic body to be dumped at landfill sites, " says Dr

SB Saxena, medical superintendent.

(Inputs by Prathima Nandakumar in Vadodara)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/852171.cms