Though health was a priority sector even before the breakout of covid-19 pandemic but after break out of covid-19 pandemic health services attracted more attention than any other sector across the world and consequently in India including Jammu & Kashmir where so for over 4400 deaths of covid patients have been reported. Amid pandemic crisis the sanitation around the hospitals should have become a priority but in Srinagar and Jammu the twin capital cities and major towns of both the Kashmir and Jammu division heaps of biomedical waste are found placed in the dumper placers outside the premises of several hospitals. Lifting garbage from the residential colonies and clearing lanes and drains is a welcome move but in the midst of pandemic crisis keeping heaps of biomedical waste scattered in and around dumper placers outside the hospitals shows that even municipal authorities in twin capital cities and major towns of Jammu & Kashmir have no civic sense. Medical waste including PPE kits, syringes, gloves, face masks and used medicines is irritating the people in general and patients and doctors in particular. Interestingly the private hospitals have become attractive for the patients because of good sanitation facilities there but people prefer private hospitals over government hospitals mostly because of the sanitation issues. Though people protest against the municipal authorities for leaving huge heaps of medical waste scattered in the open in both the twin capital cities and major towns of Jammu & Kashmir but municipal authorities unfortunately turn a deaf ear to the growing public outcry against unprecedented accumulation of medical waste in and around hospitals. As demands for regular lifting of the medical waste from dumper placers kept in and outside hospitals in twin capital cities and major towns of Jammu & Kashmir are growing day after day and month after month , the responsible for a prompt medical waste disposal lies on the municipal bodies.
The municipal bodies have to keep in mind that amid fear of possible arrival of third wave of covid-19 pandemic the removal of medical waste in and around hospitals has become an issue of concern not only for the doctors but also for the visitors at the hospitals. By all standards of understandabilities the medical waste disposal is an issue of serious concern in view of the unprecedented rise in the no of covid cases in the twin capital cities in recent weeks and as such it is for the municipal authorities of cities and towns to understand the consequences of medical waste accumulation for longer periods in and around hospitals in cities and towns of Jammu & Kashmir.
Obviously the solution to the crisis of medical waste accumulation in and around hospitals lies in creating new biomedical waste treatment facilities in both the twin capital cities-Srinagar and Jammu and major towns of both Kashmir and Jammu divisions. The municipal bodies have to keep in mind that amid fear of possible arrival of third wave of covid-19 pandemic the removal of medical waste in and around hospitals has become an issue of concern not only for the doctors but also for the visitors at the hospitals. By all standards of understandabilities the medical waste disposal is an issue of serious concern in view of the unprecedented rise in the no of covid cases in the twin capital cities in recent weeks and as such it is for the municipal authorities of cities and towns to understand the consequences of medical waste accumulation for longer periods in and around hospitals in cities and towns of Jammu & Kashmir.
