Medical waste disposal a mystery to MMC!
160 nursing homes, clinics identified
HERALD REPORTER
MARGAO, JAN 10
Thanks to the High Court, the Margao Municipal Council has so far established that around 160 nursing homes and clinics are operating in the city.
But, the civic body has no knowledge where the bio-medical waste generated in these institutions finds its way in the absence of any common facility for the disposal of this waste.
As per the Civic body, the Commercial Capital is the home of 27 nursing homes and hospitals, 113 clinics and dispensaries, 16 pathological labs and as many as three veterinary institutions.
But, the figure is not final. If Margao Civic officials are to be believed, the number of medical establishments may go up still further as many an institution keeps coming to the civic body for registration.
Strange it may sound, but true that most of the medical establishments in the city were operating without the mandatory registration. And, thanks to the High Court directives to the civic bodies on the disposal of bio-medical waste, the Margao civic body was forced to compile the list of establishments in the city.
This implies that the civic body had turned a blind eye to not just the disposal of bio-medical waste, but the very registration of the institutions generating the waste.
Incidentally, when questioned over the disposal facility set up by the 160 establishments, civic officials avoided the question, but maintained representatives of the Goa Pollution Control Board are presently in the city conducting a survey of the medical institutions on the disposal facility for bio-medical waste.
Incidentally, successive Councils have been paying only lip service to the issue of bio-medical waste despite the fact that the waste, including still born babies, has been finding its way at the Sonsodo over the years.
