Sanitation workers assaulted at MCH

Unidentified persons allegedly assaulted a few sanitation workers at the Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital on Monday.

According to hospital authorities, the incident took place when three sanitation workers were engaged in efforts to clean the surroundings of the Child Development Centre and dig a pit to burn the collected wastes that included paper and dry leaves. Two persons, who claimed to be residents of the locality, allegedly manhandled the workers and the driver of an autorickshaw.

Hospital Superintendent M.S. Sharmad maintained that such incidents threatened to seriously affect the efforts to maintain clean surroundings within the hospital premises. The house-keeping wing of the hospital has strongly condemned the alleged incident.

The hospital stated that while biomedical wastes generated in the hospital were being regularly transported to IMAGE, the biomedical waste treatment and disposal facility, at Palakkad, other wastes including plastics were being destroyed in the incinerator that has been established at SAT Hospital.

Problems such as the present one could be addressed with the purchase of another incinerator.

While the authorities said that a complaint has been submitted seeking strong action in the alleged incident, the Medical College police said that a case was yet to be registered in the issue.

Police sources also said that the issue has prevailed for a while with many local residents claiming to have been inconvenienced by the burning of wastes in the hospital premises.