Department was picking 350 tonnes of trash from the entire city on daily basis. PHOTO: MUHAMMAD IQBAL / EXPRESS
The Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet and the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) on Monday expressed anger over the lack of medical waste incinerators at Islamabad’s public hospitals.
Committee chairperson Kulsoom Parveen said Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and Polyclinic were disposing hospital waste without taking any precautionary measures.
“The used syringes are not properly disposed of. They are being picked up by criminal elements which recycle them and sell them in the market. This practice is a blatant violation of health safety codes,” she said.
Parveen said that it was a cruel joke that out of Rs11 billion budget, only Rs110 million was being used for disposal of hospital waste.
“Hospitals receive a huge budget to ensure safe disposal of medical waste, but they do not bother to use it properly,” she said.
Parveen said that everyday around 100 tons of hospital waste is being produced at Polyclinic Hospital and around 200-250 tons at Pims.
She said that the hospital administrations informed the committee that they moved a proposal in 1996 to install incinerators but no progress has been since then.
Parveen said that incinerators were produced locally and were available at low prices, but no one was using them. She also noted that the hospital administrations had not repaired out-of-order incinerators.
CADD Secretary Fareedullah Khan assured the committee that funds will be released very soon to improve waste disposal.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 17th, 2013.
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