Bangalore's oldest missionary medical centre- St. Martha's Hospital is the first hospital in the State to set up a bio medical waste management system soon after the Centre passed the order authorising the State Pollution Control Boards take on the responsibility of bio-medical waste management. Today, the St. Martha's pays a renewal fee of Rs. 40,000 annually to the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB).

The KSPCB inspectors visit the hospital to check out if the hospital is complying with the pollution control norms. The hospital is also organising for the lab tests of the sewage water and the smoke disbursed from the incinerator.

The hospital authorities initially installed an incinerator manufactured by Theralac Industries, but a lot of modification was undertaken later by PR Thermal Systems and a new chimney was installed which is 30 metres in height with a 15 metres castable refractory with its interiors made of galvanised thickness of 8mm base and 4 mm height. The chimney of the incinerator is 100 feet high and the base measures 1.8 m.

The other hospitals in the city, which have incinerators of their own, are St. John's Medical College Hospital, Sri Satya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Sanjay Gandhi Accident Relief Institute and the Baptist Hospital.

The main features of the bio medical waste treatment at St. Marathas hospital is the two chamber process- primary and secondary. "The idea is to burn the waste efficiently and the first chamber temperature reading are around 800ºC and the secondary chamber generates 1050ºC. The incinerator is operated on diesel fire. The other unique feature is that there is a air cool mechanism," said James Sequeira, Assistant Administrator, St. Maratha's hospital.

The output of biomedical waste from the hospital is around 60 kg and the incinerator burns for two hours a day. "Even if an additional 30 kg of waste is generated, the incinerator will run for an additional one hour. "Right now the present capacity is sufficient, he added.

Within the premises is also a compost pit for non-biomedical waste like food etc. there is ample air circulation in the compost pit.

St. Martha's set up in 1886 is today a 565-bed hospital handles a spectrum of general medicine which excludes cardiac surgeries, dialysis, Neuro surgery. The hospital is known for its prosthetic centre, physiotherapy department, maternity care, dermatology, ENT, urology, Psychiatry paediatrics and gastro-intensiology. There are seven operation theatres. The maternity ward alone has 98 beds in the special wards and 96 in the general ward, apart from 25 beds in the NICU (Neo-natal intensive Care Unit). There is also an MICU (medical intensive care unit, cardiac care unit and graded care unit.

The hospital is expected to install a CT Scan shortly. There are around 800 patients every day utilising the facility of the OPD (out-patient department) every day with a 50 percent occupancy in the in-patient wards. As a charitable institution founded by the Good Shepard, the hospital charges are lower than any of the private hospitals and nursing homes in the city, said Sequeira.