Sanitation workers cannot refuse to collect garbage from Covid patient’s home: Dr Joshi
The garbage collecting sanitation workers in some areas are refusing to pick up the domestic garbage of the families of some Covid-19 patients in Dehradun. According to Neelima Negi, a resident of Friends Enclave, Defence Colony, her husband recently tested positive for Covid-19 and has been in isolation since then. Though he is living in a separate room and none of his garbage is kept in the regular trash of their home, the sanitation workers who collect garbage door to door refused to pick up the garbage from their home, stated Negi.
One of the residents of Bhagat Singh Colony also shared his experience stating that the sanitation workers were initially reluctant to collect regular garbage from his home but after his family complained to the supervisor of the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD), they started to collect their garbage. Talking about this issue, the chief municipal health officer, Dr Kailash Joshi said that no garbage collector from MCD can refused to collect garbage from the families of Covid-19 infected patients. If anyone has any issue regarding such matters, they can complain to the supervisors of their respective areas or the councillors of their wards, added Dr Joshi.
On the question of the collection and disposal of the waste generated by a Covid-19 patient who is in isolation at home, Joshi said that disposal of biomedical waste does not concern the municipal corporation as the responsibility of disposing such waste has been given to the Medical Pollution Control Committee (MPCC) by Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board (UEPPCB).
Monday, 07 September 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
