PIMS Hospital’s director served notice over improper disposal of medical waste
- By Jahangir Khan -
- May 21, 2023
ISLAMABAD: An investigation has been 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, ARY News reported on Sunday.
The PIMS head served a show cause notice to the director non-medical Chaudhry Waris Raza following the directives of the health ministry after an investigation was launched into the improper disposal of medical waste.
Chaudhry Waris Raza has been directed to clear his position in three days, otherwise, he would face disciplinary action by the PIMS management. According to the notice, the authorities detected mismanagement and SOP violations in medical waste disposal.
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.
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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.
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.