NGT-ordered report finds AIIMS,8 others violating waste disposal norms

“It is shocking that all nine are government hospitals,including the premier institute of the country AIIMS,” Justice Swatanter Kumar,the chairman of the NGT,said.

The report found that band-aids and other medical waste were being stashed in black trash bags or lidless bins instead of being put away in puncture-proof bags with biohazard symbols. In the report,AIIMS was specifically flagged as an institute that did not have an isolated storage site for its biomedical trash.

Justice Kumar ordered that the Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare hold a meeting with member secretaries of the inspecting agencies and representatives from the nine hospitals. He also ordered that they create a road map to help the hospitals comply with biomedical waste disposal standards. The government is expected to provide appropriate funding for the same.

Counsel for many of the hospitals in the report tried to file responses to the inspection. But Justice Kumar said,“We are not going to look at your affidavits… The hygiene and disposal of biomedical waste is required to be maintained at the highest standard.”

The committee is expected to re-inspect the hospitals one month after it meets to impose its instructions and then report back to the NGT on August 23. Justice Kumar said if the hospitals are found not complying with standards,they would be considered for prosecution.