From: ian blenkharn@ianblenkharn.com
Category: News & information
Date: 25 Aug 2008
Time: 11:50:05 +0200
Remote Name: 86.146.8.18
"LAHORE: The Environment Protection Department (EPD) of the City District Government Lahore (CDGL) and the Children Hospital has constituted a committee of four doctors to probe the issue of sale of infectious hospital waste.
"The Environment Department CDGL Lahore had arrested Khalid Shah Deputy Medical Superintendent Children Hospital the other day for his alleged involvement in the sale of dangerous hospital waste. He was arrested on the information given by four employees of the Children Hospital, who had earlier been put behind bars for transferring hospital waste from an official truck to a private vehicle, rather than taking it to the Children Hospital incinerator.
[more]
I have wide experience of the illicit salvage of items from clinical waste that later pose a considerable public health risk when these items are re-used. Though this experience does not include Pakistan, I have little doubt that poverty plays a considerable role.
However, the corruption of middle-grade and senior officials who sell waste and buy back unsafe salvaged items, no doubt while accounting for the purchase of high quality product sourced from legitimate suppliers, plays a considerable part in this awful trade.
Ian