CHENNAI: There are about 1,000 traditional washermen in Chetpet dhobi khana. Except for a few, who have upgraded to mechanised washing, others still do it with bare hands without any personnel protection equipment, even when handling biomedical products like hospital linen. Inquiries reveal that workers who pick up linen from a couple of top private hospitals were given vaccination shots to prevent the spread of infections, while others were at a risk.
When this correspondent was speaking to dhobiwallas, a team of doctors from Government Yoga and Naturopathy Medical College in Chennai arrived in an auto carrying a herbal concoction, Nilavembu Kudineer, believed to improve immunity. Washermen, including women and children, queued up to drink the bitter brew, saying it helps them fight diseases.
Such visits have become more frequent after a PIL was filed in the Madras High Court on December 16 besides an ongoing hearing in a case on biomedical wastes in the National Green Tribunal.
“Now we are being subjected to turmoil of even closure of our units in the wake of serious issues being raised in the courts regarding improper handling hospital linen. The livelihood of about 5,000 people is at stake with new modern entrants coming in our way through authorisation from TNPCB,” said C D Suresh, secretary of 60-year-old Chennai Rajaka Yuvajana (Sakavaiyalar) Sangam.
“Almost all hospitals outsource the job to private launderers, whose quality is questionable. We complained to the TNPCB (Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board) two months ago,” said S Ganesh, manager, BJ Exports. Sources said the TNPCB has closed a couple of laundry units since then. But just one company in the city holding a license to handle hospital linen would amount to monopoly.
The TNPCB has authorised BJ Exports to process 20 tonnes of Yellow (c) category linen (hospital linen, bed sheets, pillow covers, uniforms, towels, mattress, curtains, operation theatre linen, labour-ward linen) per day and one tonne of Yellow (g) category waste (contaminated with blood/body fluid) of bio-medical waste. The company obtained consent under Rule 10 of the Bio-medical Waste Management Rules (BMW), 2016 on April 26 this year.
Ready to reform & refine
Karthik, a fourth generation dhobi, who owns Karthik & Arun Laundry Services inside the Chetpet dhobi khana, said he stopped taking hospital orders after TNPCB officials threatened to close his unit. He is among the very few who offer mechanised washing. His unit has a heavy-duty washing machine, a hydro extractor and a dryer, the same set of machinery that BJ Expo has.
“I requested TNPCB officials to guide me in getting the authorisation certificate, but they are not ready to listen. BJ Expo is using the TNPCB to kill our livelihood. Several unauthorised laundry units have struck a deal with BJ Expo on profit sharing and TNPCB does not bother them,” he said, adding that dhobis at Chetpet were keen to improve their workmanship and operate as per the rules, provided help comes from TNPCB, Corporation of Chennai and other government authorities. “We are ready to build a separate enclosure to handle hospital linen,” he said.
Another dhobi said that all these years government authorities had remained silent, knowing that they were handling hospital linen. “We earn a significant portion of our income through hospital orders. With every household having a washing machines our business has been restricted,” he said.
A senior Metro Water offficial said there was a proposal to install a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) at the Chetpet dhobi khana to treat liquid before letting it out into the drain pipes. The Chetpet dhobi khana is the only facility, among 14 others in the city, that receives Metro Water through a pipeline, right from the British regime.
Grey areas
The Yellow (c) and (g) categories of BMW rules only talk of bio-medical waste, not the reusuable bio-medical products. Doing hospital-linen laundry would not straight-away fall into the category of under BMW rules. Any reusable biomedical product is not biomedical waste; in fact there is no clear definition. However, the liquid used for washing and rinsing hospital linen, incorporating liquid disinfectants in the process, would be classified as liquid biomedical waste product under Yellow category - Section (f). The Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2016 mandates a few procedures to handle such “Chemical liquid waste” to avoid spreading of infection.
Ambiguity over definition of reusable hospital linen
Jawaharlal Shanmugam, the petitioner in the NGT case and former chief administrative officer of Sri Ramachandra Medical Centre, said even the latest Bio-medical Waste Management Rules of 2016 has many grey areas. The rules have dealt with the categorisation of solid bio-medical wastes generated in hospitals and ways they must be collected and disposed of to the government-authorised Common Treatment Facility Provider (CTFP), and the treatment methodology to be followed to the different categories at CTFP. However, for reusable soiled hospital linen, there is no proper definition under the latest BMW rules to treat it as solid bio-medical waste. The question is how a reusable bio-medical product could be treated as waste and under what classification. Reusable products become biomedical waste only when discarded, he said.
BJ Expo to implead in NGT on Jan 4
During the last hearing of the bio-medical waste management case before the NGT’s southern bench on December 13, BJ Expo Pvt Ltd requested for impleading in the original case filed by Jawaharlal Shanmugam. The party was asked to file the affidavit and other papers on the next hearing on January 4, 2017. A PIL by Dr J Umarani was filed before the Madras HC on December 16, regarding issuance of license to handle bio-medical waste and soiled linen in particular. Chief Justice S K Kaul issued notices to the government to file its affidavit within three weeks and listed the case for January 30.