'More staff needed for KSPCB'

Manpower shortage crippling monitoring of hospitals

 
Speaking to newspersons on the sidelines of a refresher programme ‘Biomedical Waste Management and Handling Rules’ organised by a private health service organisation, People Health, in association with the the KSPCB on Tuesday, Senior Environmental Officer Lingaraju said, “We have only 120 technical staff with the Board. We require twice that number. This makes it difficult to keep track of whether every hospital adheres to the regulations laid down.”

Amendment

The Bio Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules (1998) will be amended shortly to ensure that all clinics need to get authorisation for all activities carried out by them, including waste treatment and generation, he said.

“At present, clinics attending to less than 1,000 per month are exempted from them,”
Lingaraju said.

Thirty per cent of clinics presently used the common facility for disposal of waste matter, the officer said.

Effluent treatment

Earlier, answering queries during his presentation, Lingaraju said the Board was not very keen on the kind of Effluent Treatment Plants being set up by hospitals but were very particular if the pipelines adhered to the standards.