PIMS Hospital makes incinerators functional for medical waste disposal
- By Jahangir Khan -
- Jun 05, 2023
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Hospital administration has made incinerators fully functional for disposing of medical waste, ARY News reported on Monday.
Earlier in May, it was learnt that the hospital has two incinerators for the disposal of medical waste but one of the two incinerators was dysfunctional for four months.
The PIMS spokesperson said that a waste management committee will supervise the disposal of infectious and non-infectious medical waste separately. It added that 21,985 kilograms of medical waste was disposed of last month.
READ: PIMS Hospital’s director served notice over improper disposal of medical waste
In May, an investigation was launched into the improper disposal of medical waste at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Hospital and a show cause notice was served to the hospital’s director non-medical Chaudhry Waris Raza.
As per the SOPs, the medical waste of PIMS Hospital must be disposed of separately but three genres of the hospital waste were being dumped together. It further stated that the hospital has two incinerators for the disposal of medical waste but one of the two incinerators was dysfunctional for four months.
It emerged that the PIMS waste management in charge misguided the management regarding the dysfunctional incinerators and payment was disbursed to the contractor for the faulty incinerator besides failing to provide a written record of the medical waste disposal and attendance data of the concerned staff.
READ: HEALTH MINISTRY ENDS SERVICE AGREEMENT OF 11 PIMS HOSPITAL OFFICERS
The notice read that the medical waste was disposed of in the absence of the experienced staff of the waste management department. It is pertinent to mention here that a private company is responsible for medical waste disposal at the PIMS Hospital
The notice stated that the private company did not devise a comprehensive mechanism for medical waste disposal and its staffers provided unsatisfactory answers to the show cause notices.
It added that blood drops were found in different places at the medical waste disposal site at the PIMS Hospital due to the negligence of the private company’s staffers responsible for implementing the SOPs.