Committee formed to ensure proper disposal of hospital waste in Sindh

Sindh Health and Population Welfare Minister Dr Azra Pechuho said Friday they had constituted an Infection Prevention and Control Committee to ensure proper disposal of hospital waste in the province and vowed that incidents of hospital waste being smuggled out of health facilities and sold in the market would not be allowed anymore.

“Major hospitals in the province have their own incinerators and it is the responsibility of hospital managements to properly dispose of all the medical waste being generated at their premises. We have notified an Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Committee to look into this issue as unsafe injection practices and poor infection control were the reasons behind the recent HIV outbreak in Ratodero, Larkana,” she said while addressing a news conference at her office.

She spoke in detail of the steps being taken by the provincial health department for the prevention of infectious diseases in the province, and said that from now onwards, 75-80 percent of syringes that would be purchased by the health department would be auto-lock syringes while regular syringes would only be purchased in a small quantity for mixing solutions and other required purposes.

“We have also started trainings of hospital staff – from janitors to nurses and paramedics as well as doctors and other staff on infection prevention and control as it is a serious issue and cause of concern for us,” she said, adding that strict action would be initiated against those involved in unsafe disposal of hospital waste in the province.

Regarding medicine shortages at hospitals due to delayed procurement, she said that due to apex court orders and fear of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), medical superintendents of the hospitals and other officials were not willing to purchase medicines on their own while session judges who had been asked to monitor the procurement process of medicines had also refused to monitor the process.

“But tenders for the central procurement of medicines have been issued and the central procurement committee has started the procurement process. It is hoped that within a couple of weeks, the procurement process would be completed and medicines would be available at the hospitals and health facilities.”

Responding to queries about the unavailability of Anti-Rabies Vaccine (ARV), the health minister claimed that although there was a shortage of the ARV in the country, still it was available at different major and minor health facilities in Sindh. She added that they had asked the medical superintendents of all the hospitals to keep the health department updated so that in case of the unavailability of the ARV in any area, it could be provided to them.

On the suspension of ambulance service by the Aman Foundation, she said that due to some technical issues, funds to the Aman Foundation could not be provided after June but a new summary had been approved by the chief minister for the provision of funds to the Aman Foundation. She hoped that their ambulances, with a changed name, would be back on city roads very soon.

“The Aman Foundation was unable to continue its services in Karachi and they requested the Sindh government to bear their operational and human resource costs. We agreed to it but in order to make it more transparent, the funds were provided through the Patient Aid Foundation (PAF). Now the PAF has backed, so we are going to have another MoU with the Aman Foundation while a summary for the provision of funds to them has also been approved.”

To a query, she said she was not aware if any public hospital’s radiology department was taking money for the provision of various radiological services to patients, and added that she would probe into it. “Services of Cyberknife and PET Scan are being provided free of charge at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), which are being praised locally and internationally. But if somebody is charging for other services, I would look into it.”

The health minister maintained that due to the recent rains and heaps of garbage, Karachi was in the grip of different types of infectious diseases, and the health department in collaboration with other departments was carrying out fumigation while special wards had been established at the hospitals to treat patients with dengue fever.

“Punjab is having dengue fever cases in a day which were reported in Sindh in a whole year, but unfortunately Sindh is the focus of all,” she said and added that the woman who died in Mirpurkhas was in critical condition and her family took her away against medical advice at a time when all three ambulances were away to get patients from different areas of the city.