LAHORE:All departments concerned must develop and implement a well-coordinated mechanism to properly dispose of all types of hospital waste, and no room should be left for failures of policies and implementation of the standard operating procedures.
In this regard, a meeting was held here on Friday with Chief Executive Officer PHC Dr Muhammad Saqib Aziz in the chair. Dr Saqib Aziz briefed the meeting about the agenda and objectives of the subject under discussion. He observed that there was no systematic and proper mechanism to dispose of hospital waste, especially infectious waste from smaller private hospitals and GPs. He emphasised that all departments concerned should jointly devise and implement a mechanism also to facilitate private hospitals and GPs.
PHC Director Dr Mushtaq Salariya highlighted the issues related to the hospital waste management and PHC efforts in improving the situation. He accentuated the gaps related to waste management, identified during inspections of the hospitals. The SH&MED shared that incinerators were installed in three teaching hospitals of Lahore and 10 institutes in other cities, which had contractual arrangements with private waste management companies and P&SHD to dispose of waste from the rest of the teaching hospitals.
The P&SHD informed that 26 incinerators had been installed to dispose of the infectious waste of all DHQs and THQs which, on average, could incinerate 130,000 kgs per month. Officials of the EPD, LWMC and PBTA also briefed the meeting about their ambit of working, successes so far and future plans.
The session was attended by senior officers including Director PHC Dr Muhammad Anwar Janjua, Special Secretary (Operations) Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Department SH&ME Shoaib Jadoon, Additional Secretary (Technical) Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department P&SHD Dr Muhammad Younas, Deputy Project Manager Hepatitis Control Programme Dr Yadullah, Director General Sikandar Zishan and Director Nasim-ur-Rehman of the Environment Protection Department (EPD), while others were from the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) and Punjab Blood Transfusion Authority (PBTA).