Bio-medical waste, segregated and collected in yellow polythene bags, was dumped outside the Indira Gandhi Government General Hospital here on Tuesday, posing a serious health hazard to those who used the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Salai.
Workers at the hospital who dumped the bio-medical waste, which included used syringes, IV tubes and bandages, on the road said that the municipality workers had refused to collect it from inside the hospital for the past two days. They said that they were told by officials to dump the waste outside in order to enable the municipality to transport it.
According to the usual procedure followed in the hospital, waste produced was segregated into ordinary and bio-medical by the different wards.
While the ordinary waste was stuffed in a black polythene bag and sent to the dump yard by the municipality, the bio-medical waste was put in a yellow bag and tagged with the name of the specific ward for identification. It was then transported by the hospital trucks to an incinerator at Gorimedu.
Municipality officials said that the collection of garbage in the area had been entrusted to a private firm which had been awarded the contract by the government. Therefore, the duty of collecting the garbage fell on the new firm, which took charge from May 1, they said.
Officials of the firm, who were present at the site where the waste was dumped, told The Hindu that their contracts did not involve collection of “medical waste.” Arrangements have to be made by the hospital to remove the waste, they said.
When contacted, Medical Superintendent V. Govindaraj said that in a note sent by the Municipality Commissioner to him recently, the hospital was asked to dump the garbage in the bins provided for the purpose. However, though truck loads of garbage were usually produced in the hospital every day, only one bin was given. This meant that the garbage spilled out on to the road.
Admitting that the bio-medical waste should not have been mixed with the ordinary waste, he said that it was a rare mistake and hospital would ensure that it was not repeated.
