DoE fines private health facilities

The Department of Environment (DoE) has taken action recently against a private hospital and a diagnostic centre in the city on charge of violating environmental laws. According to a press report, Salahuddin Specialised Hospital Limited in Tikatuli area was found functioning without any environmental clearance from DoE. A hearing of the matter took place at DoE headquarters and the private hospital was fined Taka 4,00,000.  DoE director (monitoring and enforcement) M Alamgir imposed the penalty.
In another case, Health Aid Diagnostic Centre at Azimpur was found guilty of operating the centre without proper waste disposal system. The DoE fined the diagnostic centre Taka 50,000. This is the second time that the DoE fined a private hospital and a diagnostic centre for violating environmental laws and dumping medical wastes at open places. Previously, a hospital in city's Mirpur area was penalised by DoE for throwing clinical wastes on roads and adjacent open places exposing public health to hazards.
There has been a mushroom growth of private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres in major cities and towns over the years across the country. Experts feel it is not possible for the DoE with its poor manpower and logistics support to take proper actions against the health facilities both in public and private sectors for violating specific environmental laws.
According to an estimate, there are some 1500 hospitals and private clinics operating in Dhaka city alone. Out of these, less than one fourth hospitals and clinics maintain scientific waste management procedures. The hospitals, private clinics and diagnostic centres now functioning in various parts of the country have no waste disposal system worth its name.
Medical experts say serious diseases including Hepatitis B and C and AIDS can easily be transmitted if wastes collectors are injured while handling used needles, available in plenty in wastes found dumped in open places or sold directly to the factories by some hospital staff for recycling. The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) authorities say that they have been trying to dispose of medical wastes for quite a long time but the response from private clinics in this regard is very poor. The DCC, however, is yet to maintain safe disposal of medical wastes from the government and private hospitals.
In many city areas, some employees of private and public hospitals and diagnostic centres are often found selling used needles, syringes, ampoules, blood bags and a good number of other clinical materials. The discarded materials are washed in an unhygienic condition and sold to vendors. We are constrained to say that the authorities concerned of those hospitals and clinics are very much aware of the dumping and sale of hazardous medical wastes originating from their establishments but they pay no attention to it.
In the port city of Chittagong, as we reported earlier in this column, hazardous medical wastes from more than 200 hospitals, private clinics and diagnostic centres are being dumped daily outside their premises. Though it is mandatory for hospitals and clinics to maintain their own incinerators for the purpose of scientific disposal of clinical wastes, nobody abides by the rules.
Sources say that most of the clinics and diagnostic centres in the city and rural areas of Chittagong have managed to obtain clearance certificates from Department of Environment (DoE). The civil surgeon of Chittagong and the department of health asked clinics and hospitals several times to maintain incinerators. But most of the hospitals and clinics have reportedly ignored the directive.
In the absence of incinerators, the wastes are dumped near the hospital premises and those are collected by vendors and sold to traders for recycling. The district health authority of Chittagong conducted drives against the hospitals and diagnostic centres in the past for dumping of medical wastes in open spaces. But the efforts have gone in vain because those clinics are yet to set up incinerators.
In order to stop reckless dumping and sale of medical wastes for the sake of protecting public health, the authorities concerned must apply law strictly and carry out mass awareness campaign throughout the year. Media can also play a vital role in achieving the objective.
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