TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: San Andre MLA Vishnu Wagh took on his party colleague over the poor garbage handling as well as sewage at the Goa Medical College (GMC) and Hospital Complex.
Wagh who led a delegation of panchas from the Curca-Bambolim-Talaulim panchayat to the complex on Tuesday morning expressed his disappointment at the state of affairs within the hospital.
“Bio(medical) waste is not treated properly and is just dumped…. Behind Yatri Niwas, waste is just dumped and burnt in the open. This is a very callous attitude on the part of the GMC authorities,” Wagh told Herald.
“Water is being directly released into some ponds and flows down even further. There are some other filthy ponds too,” he said, adding, “The panchayat will be issuing them a show cause notice.”
Wagh said that neither the Medical Superintendent nor the Dean were present in the hospital premises when he and the delegation of panchas visited, saying that the purpose of his visit was to inspect the solid waste and sewage management within the complex.
Wagh also hit out at the health minister Laxmikant Parsekar for failing to form the Hospital visiting committee, which would periodically visit the hospital and make suggestions, besides keeping vigil on the state of affairs.
“So far the Health Minister has not constituted the Hospital visiting committee for GMC, even though it is a year that this government is in power,” Wagh said.
The committee usually is headed by the local MLA and has other officials as members.
Heath minister Laximikant Parsekar refused to comment saying that this (Wagh) was a member of his own party.
This isn’t the first time the GMC is facing the ire of authorities for mismanagement of its waste. In June last year, the GMC received a notice from the Goa State Pollution Control Board for “gross violation of the provisions of the BioMedical Waste Rules, 1998 and… the provision of the Environment Protection Act” as well as from the local panchayat which had also sent a notice. The matter reached the court of the deputy collector, where it was called for systemic changes to be effected to help GMC deal with its problem.
