With the number of cases of Hepatitis E coming down, the attendant publicity and also the sanitation drive will begin to wind down.
I am quite concerned about the utter disregard the medical profession has with regard to the safe disposal of biomedical waste.As everyone is aware contaminated needles and syringes and even body parts are being disposed off in a negligent fashion in municipal garbage bins. Needlestick injury can lead to Hepatitis B and HIV (AIDS) infection. It is quite possible that what the cat (or dog) brings in could be the placenta from your wife's recent delivery!! Though the Goa government has come out with a notification to this regard -The biomedical waste -(Management & Handling) rules 1998 wef 1st Jan 2003, very little has been done to implement this rule. The IMA -Indian Medical Association and the Goa Association of Private Nursing homes have typically washed their hands off the issue putting the onus of collection of this hazardous waste and its disposal onto the government. The Government on its part seems clueless about deep burying /incineration. The GMC incinerator is overburdened and is non functional being more of a pollutant. Hospicio and Asilo have incinerators which are non functional. While the PMC aka CGP has a scheme whereby the hospital waste is collected by a private collector and dumped in Curca violating all the rules about its safe disposal. While all the parties wrangle and point fingers, we are setting ourselves up for an Hep B epidemic on a major scale that will dwarf the malaria, and Hep E incidents. It is pointless to project Goa as a health tourism destination or any other tourist destination when our basic infrastructure is in shambles. If the numero uno state is so negligent in handling its medical waste then what about neighbouring (ghatti) Karnataka? Take Belgaum -taluka HQ and just across the border for instance. The district is as large as Goa with the population of Belgaum town alone being 6-7 lakhs. All the hospitals right from the 400 bedded KLES Hospital,the 200 bedded government civil hospital and all the private nursing homes have a medical waste disposal system in place. The remarkable thing is that the system is largely privately run with minimal supervision from the Karnataka Pollution Board. ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
