directives of the Prime Minister of Pakistan on safe disposal of medical waste in ICT

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To implement the directives of the Prime Minister of Pakistan on safe disposal of medical waste, Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority (IHRA) organized a meeting of all stakeholders from the federal capital. Presiding the meeting today in the office of IHRA the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the IHRA discussed the need for disposing the more than 2200 health facilities in Islamabad. He said that lack of infection control practices and weak disposal mechanisms leads to the present state of high number of infections spreading in Pakistan such as Hepatitis C, and HIV. This situation is also leading to spread of antimicrobial resistance in the country.

The meeting was attended by Director General of Federal Environmental Protection Agency (DG-Pak EPA), District Health Officer (DHO) of Islamabad, representatives from Directorate of Health Services, National Institute of Health (NIH), participants of public and private health establishments, and waste disposal companies operating in Islamabad Capital Territory.

During the meeting, it was discussed that the total number of incinerators installed in the hospitals in Islamabad, their capacity of waste disposal, and the amount of waste produced by these hospitals. Additionally, the waste disposal companies shared information about the capacity of their incinerators and their operations in Islamabad.

The CEO of IHRA emphasized that all the waste disposal companies and the incinerators installed in the Hospitals must be registered with the EPA within 15-days. The CEO also directed public and private HCEs to establish a proper waste disposal system. He also said that IHRA would develop and launch a electronic waste disposal management system which will monitor the whole cycle of waste from production, segregation, collection, storage, transportation and incineration. He also said that both IHRA and EPA would conduct inspections of all health facilities to monitor the waste disposal systems and take action if non compliance of observed.