There is a continued major public health danger posed by the haphazard disposal of medical waste in Karachi. About 1,100 tonnes of rubbish produced by hospitals each day in Karachi are not handled separately according to modern standards.
This claim was made in his keynote talk at the National Waste Management Conference, which was held at a hotel and organised by the National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH), Prof Dr Noman Ahmed, dean of architecture and management sciences at the NED University of Engineering & Technology, made this claim.
Dr. Ahmed claimed that scavengers and municipal personnel in Karachi are vulnerable to dangerous infectious infections because they routinely handle hospital trash carelessly, similar to how the city’s municipal rubbish is handled.
He bemoaned the fact that there is absolutely no regulation to prevent scavengers from trying to take salvageable and recyclable materials out of hospital garbage, stressing that this practice has to halt to protect the public’s health. He also made note of the fact that hospital waste is frequently mingled with the city’s regular municipal trash rather than being disposed of safely.
The senior faculty member emphasised that hospital trash should be recycled because she is involved in several researches on waste management techniques.
He said that because dangerous practices in this area seriously jeopardised public health during the coronavirus epidemic, the government should devote the most resources and assistance possible to creating an effective system for disposing of hospital waste.
Apart from a few large private hospitals in Karachi, according to Dr. Ahmed, healthcare institutions lack specialised waste management systems since their various administrations choose to carry out this necessary work with the least amount of expenditure.
