ISLAMABAD:Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) has been penalized a hundred thousand rupees fine for continued violations of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997 and poor hospital waste management system.
The Islamabad High Court’s Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiani in his judgment on Thursday ruled in the light of the reports and evidence provided by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) convicted the PIMS administration for poorly handling highly infectious hospital waste, an official of the EPA told reporter.
The PIMS administration had challenged the penalty imposed by the Environmental Protection Tribunal after receiving complaints of repeated violations of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act (PEPA) 1997 rules.
The first complaint received by the Tribunal was lodged on September 21, 2010, whereby the Tribunal directed the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) to initiate proper inspection of the hospital to ascertain the facts.
On the inspection of the Pak-EPA a score of violations were observed on the part of PIMS Hospital,and in the light of the facts, the learned Tribunal passed the impugned order on January 23, 2018.
However, the PIMS administration being the appellant contested the decision as misinterpretation of the provisions of PEPA 1997 rules while passing the impugned order and imposing the fine upon the appellant.
The Pak-EPA officials informed the Court that Environmental Monitoring Team had visited the PIMS Hospital in compliance of the order of the Court on November 15, 2021.
The team on inspection found that there was no proper segregation of infectious and non-infectious waste materials and no proper training was being provided to the staff responsible for waste management as required under the Hospital Waste Management Rules, 2005.
“The team of Inspectors, who visited the hospital has observed multiple illegalities committed by the hospital management and staff who are not observing the Hospital Waste Management Rules, 2005, even no one from PIMS Administration is taking responsibility to supervise the hospital waste in a proper manner rather the sanitary staff is managing the affairs without any segregation practices between the toxic and non-toxic work in adequate manner”, the judgment said.
The team of EPA also observed that surgical waste material was scattered all over without warning signs and even CDA authorities are not managing their solid waste which is their responsibility.
The Pak-EPA earlier had found various public and private hospitals and pathology labs flouting the Hospital Waste Management Rules 2005 and launched punitive action to ensure safety of the masses.