MALDA, Jan 15: The English Bazaar Municipality (EBM) have not implemented a proper medical waste management system, despite their own admission that they are unable to following the norms farmed by the pollution control board.
The EBM collects medical waste form several nursing homes and pathological units in this town and receives extra payment for this service. However, the waste collected is not being properly disposed of, as the EBM does not own a medical waste autoclave sterilizer.
The vice chairman (VC) of the EBM and Trinamul Congress district president, Mr. Dulal Sarkar, admitted that they were unable to dispose of the medical waste properly due to several impediments.
“We are trying to construct a solid waste management plant including a medical waste autoclave sterilization system. But we are facing difficulties in acquiring land to build the project”, said Mr. Sarkar.
Allegedly, the EBM is regularly dumping all medical waste, including risky refuse collected from nursing homes and district hospitals, in the open vat of general garbage at Chandan Park in Ward No.25.
The owners of nursing homes and pathological units in English Bazaar town pointed out the problem and expressed unhappiness over the civic body’s inability to dispose of the risky waste.
Since1995, all political parties came to power in English Bazaar. But neither the Left Front led board nor the Congress, Trinamul Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party led board took initiative to implement a solid waste management system that took risky medical waste into account.
A few months back, the district administration had held a meeting with the civic body in order to decide upon the proper disposal of medical waste. The matter was discussed seriously in the presence of the then district magistrate, Mr. C R Das and the then chief medical officer, Dr. RR Banik, and plans were made to adopt the PCB’s norms. However, these decisions have not been put into effect.
The present chief medical officer of health, Dr. Srikanta Roy, said: “Nursing homes, pathological laboratories and district hospitals try to follow the guideline of the pollution control board. They store all medical waste separately in “black bags” and “red bags” (risky medical waste). The civic body collects all medical waste from us, but we do not know in what manner it is disposed of once it has left our premises”.
Dr. Animesh Roy, district hospital superintendent, said: “We dispose of risky medical waste in our own autoclave. The municipality collects the remaining general medical waste and processed medical waste. We do not know how they deal with the waste outside”.
The Opposition leader of the EBM and CPI-M councillor of Ward No. 25, Mr. Dulal Nandan Chaki, said: “Local people living close to Chandan Park are facing problems due to the unscientific dumping of garbage including risky medical waste by the EBM. The present civic body had built a “burning place” at the site to dispose of medical waste but it has not been utilised”. n SNS
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