ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called an inquiry into reports that “infectious waste” from the Pakistan Institute Of Medical Sciences Islamabad (PIMS), one of the largest public hospitals in the country, was being sold in the market, his social media team said on Wednesday.
Media widely reported this week that a vendor hired by the PIMS administration in 2018 to burn and destroy medical waste on the hospital premises, including discarded syringes and blood bags, had allegedly been selling it in the federal capital in connivance with hospital employees.
“Prime Minister @CMShehbaz has ordered an independent inquiry which should fix responsibilities in next 48 hours,” Sharif’s social media lead said on Twitter.
Though hospital waste can be used after following set procedures to manufacture toys, shoes and other products, reports of the sale of the used syringes and glucose bags have raised fears they may be reused by buyers, resulting in serious illnesses like HIV/AIDS, cancer and hepatitis.
Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that PIMS Executive Director Dr Naeem Malik had established a three-member fact-finding committee on the issue and asked it to submit a report within two days. A focal person will also be nominated to check activities at the incinerator installed at the hospital around five years ago.
“The company gets around Rs1.4 million per month to collect the hospital waste and incinerate it on the premises to avert recycling of the infectious waste,” Dawn said.
“[PIMS] management has written a letter to the Islamabad IG [police], informing that PIMS employees were also involved in the scam and that an FIR [police report] be registered to arrest the culprits involved in the illegal act,” the newspaper report added.
PIMS Spokesperson Dr Haider Abbasi told media a fact-finding committee would investigate the issue.
“We are checking the terms and conditions of the contract. The inquiry committee will make the company - which got the contract of waste management - a party to the case and seek an explanation,” he said.
While the waste material could be used in making toys, shoes and other plastic goods, Abbasi added, “however, such waste is incinerated to ensure that it would not be reused to stop the spread of diseases.”
