The Hindu : TNPCB guideline on consent fee collection resented

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 26, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

TNPCB guideline on consent fee collection resented

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI FEB. 25. While healthcare centres were enthusiastic about the establishment of a centralised waste treatment facility (CWTF) for processing hospital waste, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) guidelines for annual consent fees collected from them remained the bone of contention, participants at a seminar on `Hospital Waste Management' said here today.

"The TNPCB calculates consent fee for waste generated based on the market price of a hospital's property. A 20-bed hospital in Avadi might generate more bio-medical waste (BMW) than a 20-bed hospital in T.Nagar, but the latter would have to pay more. The board should formulate some other guideline for collection of consent fee", the chairman of the Core Committee for Hospital Waste Management for Chennai, CMK Reddy, said, delivering his presidential address.

On the charge of Rs.3 per bed per day fixed by GJ Multiclave, the CWTF company, Dr. Reddy said the amount was calculated at a 50 per cent occupancy and was cheaper compared with other States. The rate could be reviewed after a year, he said.

(The Rs.1.75-crore CWTF near Chengalpattu would collect and process hospital waste from Chennai, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur from mid-March using chiefly an incinerator and an autoclave.)

Coming down on the use of incinerators, the Deputy Director of Environmental Training Institute, TNPCB, V.N. Rayudu, said the board was discouraging use of incinerators in the State, and stressed on the importance of segregation to minimise toxic emissions from incinerators. Healthcare units would have to conduct waste audits and submit annual reports to the board, he said.

Stating that only institutional and management commitment could sustain bio-medical waste management, D. Gopinath of the Health Care Waste Management Cell, MS Ramiah Medical College, Bangalore, stressed on the need to empower floor level staff with knowledge of BMW management. "We have to motivate ward boys, `ayahs' and even patients to comply with the system. Only then will it sustain", he said.

It was also important to protect hospital staff handling BMW, president of the USA-based Environmental and Engineering Research Group and member of Health Care Without Harm, Jorge Emmanuel, said. "Waste management cannot be divorced from worker safety".

It was also important to identify the waste generated in hospitals as internationally only about 15 per cent of hospital waste was hazardous and only they needed specialised treatment, he said.

The legal coordinator of Citizen consumer and civic Action Group (CAG), Bharath Jairaj, pointed out that awareness on BMW management vastly improved since 1999, when a survey on hospitals in Chennai by the group revealed appalling conditions - "like dogs and cats carrying away placenta and rag pickers going through BMW with bare hands".

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