PIMS to start hospital's own incinerator from current month.

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) is all set to operate itself the burning of infectious waste with the start of hospital's own incinerator during current month of December. All codal formalities have been completed to install and start of incinerator as the hospital has obtained the No Objection Certificate (NOC) from Pakistan Environment Protection Agency, an official of the hospital said on Sunday.

He said the incinerator has been placed while work is underway to make it ready for the test run which is expected in the first week of current month by a team of foreign and local experts. 'The process of installation of this incinerator is underway, which will have a capacity to burn around 100 kg hospital waste an hour. Under agreement, the supplier will be responsible for operation and maintenance of incinerator for three years.' 'With start of this incinerator, the hospital administration will be able to address the issue of dumping of its waste,' Dr Wasim Khawaja, PIMS spokesman said.

He said presently, the hospital's non-infectious waste is disposed of by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) while the hospital has contracted out the collection and incineration of its infectious waste to the National Cleaner Production Centre of Attock Refinery Limited. He said the incinerator with having dual chambers can convert the waste into infection free ash, which could be safely dumped.

Dr Wasim said that this modern incinerator will operate both on gas and electricity. 'We would have choice to smoothly run the incinerator either on gas or electricity.' He said that the machine would burn solid waste which would be collected from various sections of the hospital at a high temperature of 800 AdegC to prevent from the risk of leaving infections.

He said that the hospital would have second incinerator this...