POST 00715E : WASTE MANAGEMENT : AN ARTICLE 17 September 2004
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Philippe JAILLARD (mailto:[email protected]) from Bénin shares an article
from the French daily "Libération" of 6 Septembre that gives edifying
informations on hospital waste management in Karachi, Pakistan. For those
who would like to consult the source, the original article is available at :
http://www.liberation.com/page.php?Article=236532
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HEALTH RISKS FROM COUNTRYWIDE TRAFFIC
PAKISTAN: HOSPITAL WASTE BLACK MARKET
From our correspondent in Karachi Alice DRAPER
Monday 06 September 2004 (Release - 06:00)
At the entrance of Jinnah Hospital in Karachi the economic capital of
Pakistan, the old man Hamid is squatting in front of a heap of wastes. The
rag picker digs haphazardly into bloody wastes covered with flies: wastes
straight out from the hospital. Among purulent bandages and broken
ampoules, he finds disposable syringes and perfusion pouches.
For this Afghan refugee, the booty is important: all he needs to do is to
rinse this dirty material with water, re-pack and sell it to pharmacies
around the hospital. Tons of hospital wastes are thus coveted by several
poverty-stricken rag pickers, often children doing this business in
Karachi. Heroin addicts, hundreds of thousand of them in this mega city,
also help themselves into garbage looking for syringes. There are obviously
many risks associated with the reuse of soiled instruments: hepatitis, AIDS
and many other diseases. This deadly recycling takes place all over Pakistan.
Mafia: In Lahore 3 tons of hospital waste are produced every day. In
gigantic dumps on the outskirts of the city, a vast organized traffic of
waste is taking place, particularly for the recycling of syringes, glass
and plastic industry…. Sometimes even the hospital staff sells plastic
pouches or syringes on the side to the recycling Mafia; one hospital waste
containers sells between 1000 and 2000 Rupies (15 to 30 Euros).
Lawsuits: The greater part of the 250000 tons of hospital wastes produced
annually in Pakistan are thrown into city dumps and collected by garbage
men without any precaution. Open-air garbage pits containing syringes,
needles, organs, pieces of flesh, blood, human excreta and bandages,
transform into in culture-broth spreading diseases, contaminating the air,
the water and animals feeding from it. In the same way liquid biomedical
wastes go to sewage which used waters flow into rivers, without
any treatment.
Yet the Ministry of Health had issued guidelines in 1998 for hospital
wastes management, how to sort and treat them. According to the Pakistan’s
Environmental Protection Act of 1997, such wastes are even classified
“dangerousâ€
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