No Plastic No polythene

Dec 27, 2016

Solid waste management system at National Hospital

According to the new procedures of disposing solid waste management system at National Hospitals, the government has prohibited bringing in polythene, Plastic or king coconut husks into hospitals. Accordingly, in the future, patients could only receive food items that are brought without wrapped in lunch sheets or kept in reusable containers. Unfortunately, the majority of the public are still unaware of these new regulations, causing a lot of confusions in front of hospital gates. Since the majority of the people who are visiting government hospitals are suffering from financial difficulties, it has become problematic for them to find the proper means of bringing in these food items. On the other hand the security personnel in these hospitals have also faced a dilemma as they are bound to enforce the law. Regarding this matter Lanka News web we talk to Director NHSL Dr Anil Jasinghe.

Director of NHSL Dr Anil Jasinghe said to Lanka News Web , "Everyone like to consume food that is prepared at home. So the food items that are prepared at home should be brought inside reusable containers. For the residential patients who are receiving treatments from the National Hospital, the hospital provides nutritional food. The food are prepared according to the nutritious needs of the patients under the supervision of nutritionists. Even the drinking water that is used in the hospital are filtered and purified. The public has nothing to worry about the safety of the food and water available at the hospital. Next year we have plans to expand our facilities to provide a better service for the people".  According to the Director the daily amount of solid waste in the hospital is over 5000 kg while the chemical waste is over 1000 kg.

Since the waste is comprised of various different categories the hospital has taken different steps to manage the waste disposal. Although these policies have been executed by the hospital for several years the recent policy changes in the municipal council has increased the pace of the process. Under the solid waste management system, the waste material are segregated to minimize the disposal. This has been placed as the responsibility of the officer in charge of each unit at the hospital. Afterwards the collection of garbage is being carried out by the cleaning staff. These collected waste material is then transported to the respective disposal depots. A new cart system has been introduced to speed up this procedure. This process is constantly monitored by the public health inspectors who are stationed at the hospital. The medical officers in charge of public health and the infection control unit have also been vested with the responsibility of overseeing the process.

AshWaru Colombo