Arakan News Agency
NEW DELHI: Children of Rohingya Muslims, one of the world’s most persecuted communities who have been living on the outskirts of Delhi for some three years, are falling prey to diseases, including lung infections and severe skin allergies, due to bio-medical waste being dumped by two prominent hospitals in front of their camp, enquiries by IANS have revealed. Typically, no one wan…ts to take the responsibility for this.
Dwellers at the Madanpur Khadar camp in south Delhi claimed that discarded bandages, syringes and other bio-waste is dumped by Safdarjung Hospital and Indraprastha Apollo hospital near their camp. However, the two hospitals have stated that they cannot be held responsible as it was not their responsibility, but that of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), to monitor where the hospital waste is dumped.
Karan Thakur, a spokesperson for Indraprastha Apollo, told IANS: “We follow the law and get the bio-medical waste dumped through the vendors. But I cannot say where is it being dumped. In case it is not being dumped properly, then it is the mistake of the DPCC and not ours.”
Safdarjung Hospital medical superintendent Rajpal told IANS that the hospital did not have any role in the dumping of bio-medical waste generated as the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) and the DPCC looked after the entire operation.
A senior DPCC official, who did not wish to be named, told IANS: “We hire agencies for collecting the bio-medical waste from hospitals and dumping it properly, but Safdarjung and a few other hospitals have hired their own agencies to take care of the bio-medical waste generated from there. In such situations, the medical superintendent and the heads of such hospitals are responsible and not the DPCC.”
The toxic waste being dumped has claimed the life of three infants till now, the Madanpur Khadar dwellers say.
Often the children end up playing with discarded saline tubes, blood packs and used syringes trying to make up for the absence of toys.
Source : IANS
