Clinical waste dumped outside Patna Medical College and Hospital. Picture by Jai Prakash

Patna, Aug. 17: Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB) has identified around 118 healthcare centres, including hospitals, private clinics and nursing homes, in the state capital not taking adequate measures for safe disposal of biomedical waste.

Most of the hospitals and nursing homes do not segregate the medical waste. Worse, a few have incinerators to dispose of used syringes and other medical wastes.

The dearth of proper medical waste disposal system poses health hazard to the society. Used syringes, plastic bottles and other medical wastes find their way back to the open market, which could cause infections.

“The situation of collection and disposal of biomedical waste in the capital is alarming. Many private clinics and nursing homes in the city do not follow guidelines of the gazette notification of Biomedical Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998. Municipal waste mixed with biomedical waste is hazardous and infectious,” said R.C. Sinha, a former chairman of the BSPCB and the present chairman of State Environment Impact Assessment Authority, Bihar.

A report of Sinha and two others on solid waste management, published in the Switzerland-based International Journal of Environment Technology and Management, criticises the present practices of collection and disposal of biomedical waste in the capital. The biomedical waste gets dumped along with municipal waste at common disposal sites. According to the report, only four incinerators have been installed in the capital. They are at Patna Medical College and Hospital, Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), Kurji Holy Family Hospital and Mahavir Cancer Sansthan Hospital. But often these plants remain non-operational owing to poor maintenance and unskilled workers.

The state health department acknowledges the chinks in biomedical waste disposal. “Disposal of biomedical waste is a serious issue but the health department is making efforts to contain the problem. For instance, for the first time, a private agency has been awarded the contract for three years for running the incinerator facility at IGIMS. This incinerator facility covers public health institutions in six districts in Patna division. A biomedical waste plant at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College in Bhagalpur is also likely to become operational in a month’s time. This waste facility would cover 13 districts from Bhagalpur, Magadh and Munger divisions. Also, the same agency has been given a plot to set up a similar biomedical waste disposal facility at Gaya Medical College and Hospital, in the next six months. Similarly, another biomedical waste facility under public-private-partnership is expected to become operational in a month’s time in Muzaffarpur, which would cover 15 districts under Darbhanga, Saran, Kosi and Tirhut divisions,” said Sanjay Kumar, the secretary of the state health department.

Even the doctors accept that there are anomalies in disposal of biowaste. “While the big hospitals and nursing homes in Patna have tied up with IGIMS’s incinerator facility, there are many small private clinics and nursing homes which dump medical waste in the open. Moreover, there should be more incinerators to cover more healthcare centres,” said Dr Ashok Bhawnani.

BSPCB promised improvement in future. “At present, there is a certain degree of irregularity regarding disposal of medical wastes by the health hubs because of lack of infrastructure. But three new incinerator plants in Patna, Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur are in the final stages of construction and they would be able to cater to 70-80 per cent of the medical wastes of the entire state,” said Manoj Kumar Singh, a member secretary of BSPCB.