The government is committed to make sure the protection of the environment and all possible measures would be taken to implement Environment-friendly Healthy Hospital Initiative in twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad.
This was stated by Secretary Environment Jawed Hasan Aly, while addressing the concluding session of the National Workshop on "Integrated Hospital Waste Management Project" was held at National University of Science and Technology (NUST) here on Thursday.
NUST Consulting (a subsidiary of National University of Sciences & Technology) organised this event of national importance in collaboration with World Health Organisation (WHO).
The theme of the programme was to augment national as well as international efforts towards "Environment Friendly Healthy Hospital Initiative.
Jawed Hasan urged intelligentsia to address the significant issue of Hospital Waste Management and stressed that there was an urgent need for development of systems for proper waste management.
He appreciated the concept of integrated approach towards hospital waste management and encouraged NUST Consulting to come up with a written document on the subject so that it can be incorporated in the Healthcare Waste Management guidelines prepared by the government.
He also welcomed the idea of public-private partnership in solving community issues and emphasised that NUST Consulting could play an effective role in consolidating the Environment Friendly Healthy Hospital Initiative.
Dr S. M. Sabeeh, Healthcare Program Manager NUST Consulting (NC) in his speech stressed the need for an integrated approach to regional bio-medical waste management program.
He elucidated the broad spectrum of the issues and concerns towards Safe Management of Health Care/Hospital Waste, its history and its future horizons. He also dwelt on current and future problems on segregation at source, collection, transportation and proper disposal of hospital waste along with importance of awareness/training aspects.
Many speakers presented their papers during the technical sessions. Leading Healthcare Consultants, Environmentalists & experts from international organisations spoke during these sessions. WHO Technical Officer presented the international perspective of medical waste management programs.
Other speakers also agreed that waste management from both hospitals and municipalities was a gigantic problem in Pakistan.
The delegates of the conference thus deliberated on various social and medical issues arising out of mismanagement of health care waste.
It is hoped that information exchanged during the technical sessions will help to set a trend for a campaign across the country. Many participants felt that a national policy towards this end would make a difference.