Despite repeated warnings and fines, public and private sector health care establishments in the provincial capital continued disposing off syringes without destroying the needles, Pakistan Today learnt.
Such unsafe methods of disposing off syringes was against WHO’s instructions and posed potential threats to public health, as the syringes could be reused and spread diseases like HIV and HCV. The use of syringes has increased manifolds in hospitals and labs: owing to the dengue outbreak, thousands of patients are tested for dengue daily.
However, either the destroyers for the safe disposal of syringes are not available, or they are not being used by the paramedical staff of hospitals and laboratories. In 1998, the guidelines for disposal and management of hospital waste were issued, but have rarely been followed in hospitals, experts said. Criminal gangs have linkages in hospitals to store un-destroyed syringes, which are resold after packing.
A WHO research said reuse of needles and syringes was widespread: 85 percent in Pakistan, while the use of needle-cutters was as low as 29 percent in hospitals and labs of the country. Medical experts said the waste produced by medical care-centres, if disposed off improperly, posed an even greater health hazards than the original diseases themselves.
According to medics, the practice was one of the major causes of the spread of infectious diseases like hepatitis-B, hepatitis-C, AIDS and typhoid. Doctors said Pakistan had no system for proper management of medical waste. The incineration method being used in Pakistan for the disposal of medical waste was considered a hazard to the environment by the WWF, who had recommended advanced methods of chemical treatment or decontaminating through microwave radiation before dumping.
Talking to Pakistan Today, Fatima Jinnah Medical College Medicine Associate Professor Dr Muhammad Khalid said the syringes used for blood-related purposes ought to be immediately destroyed and their needles should be cut to prevent criminal gangs using them for resale. He added that the practice was common in many places of medical care. Public Health Consultant Shahid Malik said hospitals, clinics and labs had the destroyers and other necessary equipment, but the staff was negligent in this regard.
Environment Impact Assesment (EIA) Deputy Director Nasim Shah said their teams had raided many hospitals and found many of them not complying with the health department’s instructions regarding medical waste management. “We have fined almost 100 hospital in Lahore and around 700 across the province for the same reason,” he said. There are two incinerators near Shalimar Hospital, two with Children’s Hospital where the medical waste of 134 hospitals of Lahore was disposed off, while Jinnah Hospital was also building its own incinerator, he said.
