Three medical institutions: Command Hospital of the IAF, St. Johns Medical College Hospital and Mallya Hospital were presented the Environmentalist of the Year Award for 2001-2002 for effectively and safely dealing with their biomedical waste.

The awards have been instituted by Haat Incinerators Pvt. Ltd. Appreciation awards were also given to Manipal Hospital and Kuppuswamy Naidu Hospital, Coimbatore.

Dr. AB Malakaraddy, minister for medical education, government of Karnataka presented award along with a cash prize of Rs. 50,000, Rs. 25,000 and a certificate of merit to Command Hospital of the IAF, St. Johns Medical College Hospital and Mallya Hospital respectively.

The nominations for the award were evaluated by a panel consisting of M N Jayaprakash, senior Environmental Officer, N Girish Co-ordinator, Healthcare Management Cell, MS Ramaiah Medical College and faculty members of NIMHANS and Marut Sen Gupta, deputy director, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

All hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, veterinary institutions, pathological labs, blood banks, central treatment facilities and research institutions were eligible to send in their nominations, Dr Girish said.

Dr. Malakaraddy said the government hospitals whose combined bed strength exceeded that of private hospitals were not always disposing medical waste properly because of the paucity of funds. "We have spared money for hospitals to have incinerators on their premises but all of them do not have funds for properly maintaining them. Some hospitals find that their incinerators need frequent repairs," he said.

However, the government planned to extend modern waste disposal facilities to hospitals in the taluk level as well, possibly with World Bank and OPEC assistance, informed the medical education minister. "We cannot live with mountains of infected waste piled up on the roads of hospitals," he said.

The Union ministry of Environment had set December 31, 2002 as the deadline for all hospitals to have safe waste disposal facilities. Still hospitals and nursing homes are in the process of complying to the rules.

According to S Gopalakrishnan, managing director, Haat Incinerators the awards were announced at a time when there was increased awareness among generators of hazardous bio-medical waste. Though there was a regulatory authority appointed by the government, manufacturers of equipment had greater obligations of society, that the equipment should not create more pollution.