The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Hospital dumping body parts in dustbin?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Hospital dumping body parts in dustbin?

By Karthik Subramanian

A Corporation garbage lorry carrying a body part from the Royapettah Government Hospital near Division 111 office. — Photo: Vino John

CHENNAI, JUNE 8. A portion of a severed limb found its way into a Chennai Corporation lorry (registration number TN 04 E 2589), which cleared garbage from the Royapettah Government Hospital today.

Sanitary workers at the hospital and the driver said the limb was one of the many body parts, which were picked up from an open dustbin in the hospital backyard. (The part, wrapped in a polythene cover and kept aside by a sanitary worker, was shown to this reporter.)

The Corporation workers alleged that the hospital had been regularly dumping body parts along with garbage for more than a year. "We removed everything, from severed parts to aborted foetus. It takes us at least three days to eat properly after being marked for duty here," a worker said.

A hospital official admitted that a severed limb found its way into the garbage bin today, but denied that body parts were being dumped regularly. "They (sanitary workers) are trying to blow it out of proportion," he said after he came to know that Corporation employees had spoken to this newspaper.

Asked how the hospital disposed body parts and other organic waste, the official said organic waste was chemically treated and buried in a disposal pit in the hospital. But the pit had to be closed recently as it was saturated.

Endorsing the workers' view, the local councillor, P.T. Sivaji of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, charged the hospital with endangering the lives of not only sanitary workers but also of patients.

The sanitary workers, who cleared garbage with the severed limb, took it to a garbage transfer station at Pudupet. From there, it will reach the dumping ground at Kodungaiyur.

A government official, on condition of anonymity, said a comprehensive solution to treating biomedical waste continued to be elusive for city hospitals.

A common facility for treating biomedical waste at a site near Chengalpattu remained only on paper.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu