Covid-19 patients: FPCCI body voices concern over hospitals' trash disposal system

Participants of Standing Committee of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on Environment meeting on Covid-19 lockdown have expressed serious concern that hospitals in Karachi had no proper trash management system in place to properly dispose of biomedical waste related to the coronavirus patients.

"We may simply create another environmental catastrophe that will further aggravate the Covid-19 health emergency if in case the medical waste of the coronavirus positive patients is not disposed of scientifically as per the WHO guidelines for the purpose," said senior environmentalist Saquib Ejaz Hussain while participating in the meeting.

Speaking at the meeting held via video conferencing call owing to the Covid-19 lockdown, Saquib Ejaz Hussain emphasised that whatever emergency planning being done on a day-to-day basis by the federal and provincial governments to tackle the Covid-19 crisis should take into account the aspect of the proper disposal of the toxic medical waste being generated at the hospitals due to the treatment of the coronavirus positive patients.

He said that if proper systems were not applied and conventional means were used to dispose of such highly hazardous biomedical waste then there are chances that this clinical trash would become another source of local spread of the coronavirus infections.

He said that the water bodies in surroundings of Karachi would be massively polluted if such biomedical waste was disposed of there through usual municipal means of the trash disposal being used in the city.

He said that lives and health of the people of Karachi and that of the other cities had to be safeguarded against such environmental hazard.

Convener of the committee Naeem Qureshi said that the environmental and other related government authorities should fulfil their responsibilities to ensure working of proper waste treatment systems at major hospitals of the city in view of the Covid-19 emergency.

He said that such waste treatment systems should be in place especially in the backdrop that a makeshift isolation centre and field hospital to treat Covid-19 patients had been established at Expo Centre Karachi that is in the middle of the city.

The meeting also discussed the incident of mysterious gas leakage in Keamari in February this year that caused several fatalities.