SEPA serves notices to 64 hospitals of Sindh

Each medical facility's, public and private, hospital waste management plan sought

KARACHI: The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) served notices to 64 private and public hospitals of the province in the current month. The environmental watchdog exercised its power under the Sindh Environmental Protection Act 2014 and issued the notices to ensure the safe disposal of hazardous and infectious medical waste.

The hospitals were directed to submit their Hospital Waste Management (HWM) Plan in compliance with the HWM Rules 2014, which restrict each hospital of the province to not treat medical waste as ordinary household waste and to incinerate it according to the rules.

The authorised representatives of 10 hospitals of Karachi - out of the 15 which were served notices - have also availed the opportunity of a personal hearing to brief SEPA's director-general on the mechanism they follow to treat their medical waste. The deadline to submit their HWM plan for the rest of the five hospitals of Karachi is yet to pass.

Public hospitals have no idea on how to dispose of their waste

Other cases of personal hearings with the SEPA DG for three hospitals of Hyderabad, 10 of Sukkur and seven of Mirpurkhas are in the process of approval.

Out of 29 hospitals of Sukkur to whom notices were served, six have submitted their HWM plans which are under review by SEPA to verify if they are in compliance with HWM Rules of 2014.

It may be pointed out that under Section 22 (2) of the SEP Act 2014, SEPA can impose a heavy fine on a hospital found guilty of not disposing its hazardous and infectious waste according to the prescribed procedure. If the violation continues then a fine of Rs10,000 per day may be slapped on such hospitals in addition to the previously imposed one-time fine.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th, 2019.