Pilibhit: Upset over dumping of bio-medical waste in open on the district hospital campus, housewives of health officials living in nearby government quarters have appealed to chief minister Yogi Aditya Nath to save their children from serious infections.In a letter to the chief minister, the complainants stated that when the dumped waste accumulates in huge quantity, it is set on fire. They demanded stringent action against erring officials.According to one of the complainants, Upama Singh, hospital staff have developed hazardous practice of dumping and burning of bio-medical waste in the open adjacent to her residential block despite their objections.Another woman of the same block Kamlesh Verma alleged that the hospital authorities had been overlooking norms laid down for the disposal of bio-medical waste. “Apart from causing health problems, the presence of pigs and stray dogs at the dump is a sore to the eyes,” she said.Chief medical superintendent Dr RP Singh said, “A Bareilly-based waste treatment firm, Envirad Medicare Private Ltd, had been given the contract of collecting bio-medical waste from the hospital and dispose of the waste at their company’s plant. But, as their payment to the tune of Rs 12.65 lakh is outstanding due to money crunch, the company left in 2014.”“Now, we dump waste on the hospital campus, following the specifications issued for alternative arrangements for the disposal of bio medical waste,” he said. He, however, rejected the allegations that the hospital was dumping highly infectious waste in the open.Chief medical superintendent of district women hospital, which is also on the same campus, Dr Anita Chaurasia said Envirad worked till June 2015, after which no effort was made to renew the contract.Pilibhit chief medical officer Dr OP Singh said it was the duty of Envirad to submit bids for the disposal of bio waste management. “We have published tender two years back, but Envirad did not respond to it”.Envirad controller Rishi Kapoor, however, “The hospital owes our huge payment and despite several notices no heed was paid to the clearance of our outstanding amount. The treatment of bio waste is an essential service, which we intended to continue with in the national interest, but how long could we go without payments.”Over a question about quantum of daily production of bio medical waste in government hospitals, the additional chief medical officer, DR CM Chaturvedi, said that one indoor patient at hospital was estimated to produce 300 to 400 grams of bio medical waste a day while as per the CMS of women hospital, Dr Chaurasia, the amount of this waste was much more in her hospital due to delivery cases of babies.As per Chaurvedi, the district hospital had indoor capacity of 200 beds, the district women hospital had 70 beds while of the 7 community health centers at block level each was equipped with 30 beds, each of 22 additional primary health centers had 2 beds for admitting patients and one primary health center had 6 beds for indoor patients.A renowned private surgeon Dr Sailendra Gangwar and a pediatrician, Dr Deepak Kumar, told TOI that the dumping of bio waste could transmit infections of many serious diseases especially of blood born diseases like hepatitis B, C and HIV. The smoke caused by burning of this contagious waste could be a reason for many respiratory diseases of serious nature.

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