Gorakhpur (UP), Jan 9: The Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur city has been slapped with a fine of Rs 5 crore by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for failing to ensure disposal of medical waste properly.
A team of NGT, which visited the medical college in November, found that the institution was not disposing of its medical waste in a proper manner. They were being dumped and burnt inside the campus premises, officials of the Pollution Control Board (PCB) said.
Subsequently, they imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore on the college for gross violation of the Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016.
NGT team found foul smell emanating from heaps of undisposed medical waste dumped in campus
Officials said when the NGT team visited the college, they found that heaps of undisposed medical waste were dumped inside the campus and foul smell was emanating from them, thereby causing air and land pollution.
The team also found that there was no arrangement like separate dustbins to dispose four categories of bio-medical waste generated in hospitals. The four types included infectious biomedical waste obtained from HIV, TB, and cancer patients.
However, BRD principal Ganesh Kumar refused to comment on the issue, saying that he will respond only after consultation with the institution’s legal cell.
About BRD Medical College
Run by the Uttar Pradesh government, the BRD Medical College is the sole tertiary care centre in 300 km area around Gorakhpur region, which sees severe encephalitis outbreaks every year. During the period between 1978 and 2011, over 30,000 people, most of whom were children, died of encephalitis at the hospital. The trend continued during 2012–2017, when over 3,000 children died of encephalitis at the hospital.
Established in 1969, the 808-beddd BRD Medical College serves patients from 15 surrounding districts. Also, lakhs of patients from Bihar and even Nepal come to the hospital.
The college is one of the main centres for treating encephalitis in India. According to a 2017 estimate, the BRD Medical College treated over 60% of the encephalitis cases in the country. It receives 2,500–3,000 encephalitis patients every year.
