Taking note of the looming health hazards prevailing in the state due to non compliance of Bio-medical Waste Management and Handling (BMW) Rules 1998, the Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) to issue notices to the erring Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals in Parel and MA Podar Hospital at Worli within two days.

On Thursday, the division bench of Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice JP Devdhar held that hospitals flouting BMW management rules would be ordered to close down in case they failed to comply with the bio-medical waste management rules within the stipulated time.

The court blamed MPCB for its inaction against violators and directed it to initiate strict action, including prosecution of highest authorities of the hospitals.

Admitting that the hospitals are violating rules regarding the BMW, Sanjay Kahadare, member secretary, MPCB, said, "We are focussing more on the manner in which hospitals are segregating the biomedical waste. The hospitals always dispose the infectious waste along with the normal garbage and it will cause a lot of serious health problems. We are planning to take actions against them. Any stringent action taken against will only help them to be more aggressive."

The court also directed MPCB to issue notices to J J Hospital and KEM hospital, Oshiwara Maternity Home, Bhagwati Hospital, Sarvodaya Hospital in Chembur and Eye Hospital at Kamathipura "to remove all shortcomings and improve performance within 6-8 weeks".

The Government-run Podar Hospital (Ayurvedic) and the Worli hospital which is run by a private trust have neither registered with MPCB nor have taken any steps to comply with the rules. About 1,800 hospitals in the state are unregistered with the MPCB.

The Bombay HC-appointed court commissioners Shiraz Rustomji and Uday Warunjikar, along with an MPCB officer and a doctor from the directorate of health services inspected 40 government and private hospitals in the city before submitting the report. The report also accuses MPCB for not taking any stringent action against the hospitals that are flouting the BMW rules.

The HC had appointed the court commissioners on November 1, 2007 to inspect the hospitals while hearing public interest litigations filed by Consumer Welfare Association and Mumbai Medwaste Action Group.

There are around 1600 hospitals in Mumbai, and around 250 grams of infectious waste is generated per bed per hospital, according to a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) study. An average hospital waste stream contains less than 10 per cent of materials that could be considered potentially infectious waste if properly segregated.

Presently, most of the hospitals in Mumbai put all wastes, no matter whether they are potentially infectious, general or hazardous chemicals, together and dispose them. As a result of this failure to follow the segregation protocols, the wastes from hospitals are both potentially infectious and hazardous. At greater risks are the workers (hospital workers and workers at the common facility) who handle this. The risk to the general public is only secondary. According to industry experts, accidental exposure from contact with wastes, exposure to chemical or biological contaminants in water and exposure to chemical pollutants from incineration of waste etc may harm the general public.