Medical waste dumping

For the lack of proper monitoring and implementation mechanism to enforce laws, both public hospitals and private clinics including diagnostic centres do not maintain any scientific waste disposal and management system. As a result, hazardous medical wastes are being sold openly at the different hospitals of the city as elsewhere in the country. Trade in medical waste has as a result mushroomed in the city where syringes, ampoules, blood bags and various other materials from hospitals are washed under most unhygienic condition for reselling. It boggles the mind to think what impact such infected syringes and other materials are having on public health.
Are the hospital authorities aware what happen to the wastes they produce everyday? The Bangabandu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) director, for instance, admitted that they dump most of hospital's waste in the DCC's dustbins, while the rest they burn in the incinerator. Though medical wastes are different from other kinds of garbage they handle, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) claimed that they can dispose of one seventh of the hospital wastes of the city. But according to DCC, hospital authorities are hardly interested in it, because they sell waste in the market. How grim is the actual picture, one may gauge from the fact that only 342 out of some 1500 hospitals and clinics of the city have any scientific waste management facility, while very few among other hospitals and clinics spread over the country have such facilities.
There is an existing provision that any hospital before going into operation should obtain prior certification from the DoE. Unfortunately, as pointed out earlier, it cannot ensure its implementation, neither is it able to properly monitoring how many of these hospitals are maintaining or violating the provision.
Since the freely traded medical wastes have turned into a serious public health issue, the government should look into the matter with urgency. The DoE must be adequately staffed to monitor the hospital as well as provided with teeth to take action against those that are breaking the law.
Public awareness needs also to be built against the health hazard. The media as well as the government's own publicity organs must take up the awareness issue in earnest.