Disturbing Shortcomings In Medical Waste Management

I am once again very relieved to live in a place where the amount of disasters in medical waste management are decidedly small. There is simply absolutely no reason that anyone should do any sort of medical waste disposal in a halfhearted way. In other places there are rampant stories about regulated medical waste being tossed in public spaces or destroyed in places where the toxic fumes from burning can invade the shared public air supply or debris from it's disposal might find it's way into drinking water. It is absolutely frightening to think that someone would be so cavalier about the disposal of medical waste. This is not just a coincidence when it happens. Countries with rampant regulated medical waste disposal problems tend to be rampant offenders, simply cutting corners to save money and to facilitate lazy under trained employees. It is hard to understand how things could get so bad and how it could happen in such plain public view.

A horrible yet accurate example of this is a recent series of raids in Punjab, India. In total it is said that 108 health care facilities were raided and discovered to be dumping medical waste out in the open along with general municipal waste. The list of items found is horrendous and disturbing. Reports state that bandages soaked in blood, and disease infected needles and syringes were amongst the debris being dumped as if it was a pile of coke cans in public spaces designated for garbage disposal. In all more than fifty hospitals and various other agencies and facilities were found to be violating provisions meant to protect the citizens of India from such reckless disposal of medical waste. Disturbing is really quite the understatement.

As the management of medical waste becomes more expensive many poorer countries will likely attempt to bring costs down with broader sweeps and less focused regulation. This will be an unprecedented mistake on the parts of these cash strapped governments. The potential fall out from improperly disposed of regulated medical waste is likely to be far more expensive to fix than initially doing the right thing when it comes to medical waste management. I for one am happy to be far away from these bad examples of medical waste management. That said, it would not be a first in the United States were there to be a discovery of rampantly unregulated medical waste dumping. Hopefully though there will not be a similar discovery for quite some time.