Waste and waste everywhere and not a little bit of space seems to be waste-free to breathe fresh air in the city of Dhaka. All kinds of wastes including e-waste, hospital and medical wastes put public health in jeopardy and environment in peril. Dumping of medical wastes has become a menacing danger. Mounds of used syringes, bandage, dressings, saline bags and many more other medical wastoes are heaped to make an awful sight at different places. Sometimes, spill-over of wastes from the trash cans are littered along the roads emitting offensive odour hurting the olfactory organs. At times, blood from used bandages and the dressings were seen mixed with stagnant rainwater in potholes and spread overpowering stench of rotting wastes. Swarm of flies buzz around the garbage making the air foul. Many of the cleaners working in the hospitals dump the infectious medical wastes callously into the containers making those overflow and contaminating the environment around the hospitals. Cleaners do this ignoring the health hazards. Are the authorities concerned unaware of the danger of such dumping?
Rag pickers collect the recyclable things like syringe. Saline bags from the dump of waste. What the linchpin in the hospital administration and management do to prevent such callous dumping of wastes is a question that agitates the mind of the people. It is alleged that rag pickers sell the items collected from the wastes to scrap dealers and they again sell those items without sterilization. Are the authorities concerned incapable of dealing with this grave problem that put people’s health and the environment in danger? Most of the hospitals do not have any store room for garbage dumping and thee cleaners throw away the litters carelessly. Such wastes are highly infectious. The germs can travel through air and can affect people’s health. Medical wastes out in the open can be hazardous also for those exposed to them. It may spread contagious diseases like Hepatitis-B and C, tuberculosis and malaria. Infected syringes and scalpels may cause fatal diseases like HIV/AIDS.
To improve the medical waste management an action plan must be developed in collaboration with the Department of Environment, the Directorate General of Health services, hospitals, city corporations and municipalities. The use of modern technologies needs to be expanded with ETPs installed in all public and private hospitals along with area-based central incinerators. Waste should only be disposed of by trained personnel, while awareness of the risks of medical wastes must be raised among hospital officials, health workers, handlers, and the general public
However, with the support of the World Bank, the Local Government Division (LGD) launched the Improvement of urban Public Health Preventive Services Project on March 16, 2025. A key objective of this project is to strengthen out-house medical waste management in Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), Chattogram City Corporation ,Savar Municipality and Tarabo municipality. We hope, this will improve the medical waste management system sooner than later.
