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Hospitals breeding grounds for diseases

None | By, Kanpur
Mar 27, 2006 12:34 AM IST

MOST OF the hospitals in the city have turned into the breeding grounds of infectious diseases. Highly hazardous and infectious bio-medical wastes such as contaminated needles, human anatomical waste, waste from culture and laboratory, body fluids, plasters, discarded medicines, cotton and dressings are being dumped in the backyard of these hospitals.

MOST OF the hospitals in the city have turned into the breeding grounds of infectious diseases.

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Highly hazardous and infectious bio-medical wastes such as contaminated needles, human anatomical waste, waste from culture and laboratory, body fluids, plasters, discarded medicines, cotton and dressings are being dumped in the backyard of these hospitals.

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Despite the fact that the Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000 make it mandatory for all hospitals to adopt Biomedical Waste Management System by December 31, 2002. 

But, neither the Kanpur Nagar Nigam nor the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) took it seriously. Moreover, the doctors have also not taken any step to check the menace.

There are about 410 hospitals including government, semi-government, private nursing homes and defence hospitals, which generate around 3,550 kilograms of medical waste every day that is thrown either on the roads or at the backyard of the hospitals.

The Bio-Medical Waste rule state that the hospitals should collect human body waste and waste from lab cultures in yellow plastic bags and wastes like discarded needles and syringes in red plastic bags and destroy it with the help of incinerator.

A senior scientist at the Pollution Control Board said, “There is lack of awareness about the segregation of waste, which makes the waste infectious. Besides, many government hospitals are reluctant to dispose of the biomedical waste due to administrative hiccups,” he added.

He said, “Absence of proper waste management system, the waste is either dumped in the hospital campus or thrown recklessly at the dumping sites where it gets mixed with the domestic waste and makes the entire dumping
yard a hotbed of diseases like HIV, Hepatitis B, Leptospira, skin problems and allergies.”

According to a report, the situation at Ursala Horseman Memorial (UHM) Hospital is the worst. The hospital has an incinerator worth Rs 48 lakh, which was lying inoperative due to paucity of funds.

According to an officer of Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), the Medical College and its allied hospitals are continuously draining bio-medical waste in the lower Ganga canal, which is one of the major sources of drinking water for the people of Kanpur.

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