Deer found feeding on hospital waste, activists express concern

Deer looking for food among  bio-medical waste that was discarded at a private hospital in Taramani shocked passers-by and people who came to know of the incident. 

The unchecked dumping of hospital waste is an offence which poses a huge threat to humans and animals alike. A person visiting the VHS Hospital in Taramani was appalled at the sight of deer  looking for food among the bio-waste on Tuesday and promptly called up an environmental activist, who has taken up the matter with the authorities. 

Shravan Krishnan, an entrepreneur and environmental volunteer, said, “I got these photos on Tuesday night from one of the visitors to the hospital. On closer examination, we realised that the biomedical waste had not been disposed of as per procedure,” said Shravan. 

Based on a complaint from a group of environmental activists, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) officials conducted an inspection on Wednesday. An official who conducted the inspection of the site, said, “There was a minor lapse. A small portion of the biomedical waste had mixed up with the regular garbage. But on inspection, we found that the hospital had a regulated biomedical waste disposal system in place and this lapse has occurred due to  mass cleaning after the Pongal festival.” 

Dharmesh Shah, a waste policy expert, pointed out that most hospital staff are not trained to handle biomedical waste. “Yellow bags are used to dispose of contaminated parts of the human body, like removed tissues or organs. According to the law, they should be incinerated. Biomedical waste is a public health concern. Also, animals like cows and deer which forage for food in dustbins, are exposed to discarded syringes and other waste, which causes an injury,” explained Shah, who is a part of Zero Waste Europe. 

When DT Next confronted the hospital authorities  with the photos, they denied that biowaste was dumped. “We have an agreement with a firm which manages our biomedical waste. Everything is done as per procedure,” said Dr J Sarkar, Director of VHS Hospital.