After household and commercial garbage, the bio-medical waste has come haunting the City Corporation, who in absence of full-fledged treatment facility finds itself helpless in handling the waste, which is potentially infectious. With treatment facility at Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC) having limited scope and in absence of Common Biomedical Waste Treatment Facility (CBMWTF), collection and handling medical waste has become a major issue.
The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) council during its ordinary meeting earlier this month resolved not to lift the medical waste. There are over 70 plus hospitals and clinics operational within the council jurisdiction generating around 500kg of medical waste per day. The Council is of the view that having no facility of its own to incinerate the medical waste, and GMC being unable to treat it, it should not lift the medical waste directing the hospitals to manage it.
Speaking to HERALD, CCP Commissioner Deepak Desai said that as per Solid Waste Management Rule 2016, the civic body is not the authority to handle medical waste and that each hospital has to deal with it on their own or Government has to make centralise arrangement for the same.
“All this while, we were sending the medical waste to GMC for incinerating. Also, the hospitals and clinics don’t segregate waste. But now, GMC has also limited scope. They have to treat their waste and we don’t have our own facility,” he explained.
Desai said that following CCP decision, the hospitals approached Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Health Francis D’Souza for a solution. During the meeting it was decided that the Manipal Hospital will handle the medical waste for now. “We wrote to Manipal Hospital requesting it to treat autoclave waste and they have agreed to it,” he said.
When contacted, a senior doctor at Manipal Hospital confirmed that they have their own medical waste treatment facility and have agreed to treat the autoclave waste.
Moreover it’s been over one and half year since Government decided to come up with State’s first CBMWTF at Kundaim Industrial Estate, at an area of 10,000 sq mtrs. Meanwhile, CCP is also awaiting completion of garbage treatment facility behind Heera Petrol pump, near KTC bus stand Panjim, for the last seven months
As per the Goa Bio-medical Waste Rules, there has to be one such facility for every 10,000 hospital beds. Goa has around 5,200 hospital beds and the bio-medical waste should be treated scientifically within 48 hours.
The facility will have treatment facilities like incineration, auto-claving or microwaving, chemical disinfection, shredder, effluent treatment plant, washing and others.
Biomedical waste, one has to realize, is potentially infectious. It is generated not just in hospitals, but is also in doctor’s clinics and medical laboratories. It consists of syringes and blades, microbiological cultures, identifiable body parts, human or animal tissue, used bandages and dressings, discarded gloves, or any other medical items that may have been in contact with an infected person.
