MARGAO
Biomedical waste of patients in home-isolation should be collected separately in yellow bags provided by the urban local bodies. General waste should not be stored in yellow bags. These are the broad guidelines issued by the National Green Tribunal on the handling of Covid waste.
But welcome to the commercial capital, where leave alone providing yellow bags for the collection of the bio-medical waste, the Margao Municipal Council does not collect waste from the homes of Covid patients under home isolation.
As a result, bio-medical waste generated in the homes of the Covid patients is finding its way in the general waste, posing risk and health hazard not only to the door-to-door waste collectors, but others as well.
While the Margao municipality has put in place two teams of Covid biomedical waste collectors, they do not come to the doorsteps of the homes of every patient under self-isolation.
Reason: Margao municipal officials say that they do not receive the list of Covid patients from the health and other authorities. This may come as a big surprise given that home or self-isolation of patients is becoming a norm than an exception.
A senior MMC official told The Goan that without the list of patients opting for home isolation, they are in a quandary on how to go about the work of collecting the Covid biomedical waste.
This brings to the fore the moot question over the lack of coordination amongst the agencies involved in the battle against coronavirus and the delay by the authorities to fix the problems. This has thrown up further question why the Margao municipality and the district authorities, besides the health officials, have not sat across the table to resolve the issues at hand, more so when the NGT has laid elaborate guidelines for collection of Covid biomedical waste from homes of patients.
When The Goan called up the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) to shed light on the problem, a senior official said the district authorities will be in a better position to answer the query.
A senior South Goa district official, when contacted, disputed the stand of the Margao municipality that the civic body does not receive the list of Covid patients from the authorities.
“There’s a system in place wherein the list of Covid patients goes to the local bodies. It is surprising that the MMC does not receive such a list,” the senior official said.
The official further went on to say that the MMC ought to have bought the matter to the notice of the district authorities instead of maintaining silence on the issue.
Take note the Margao municipality has collected Covid biomedical waste from the doorsteps of patients, but only being informed by the city fathers and citizens. “Whenever we have received information that certain patients are in home isolation, we have provided the bags and collected the biomedical waste,” an MMC official said.
