Highly toxic in nature, they can be a source of severe health hazard if not treated properly, according to experts.
While most hospitals accused of this gross violation are in and around Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts, a significant number are in other districts as well.
Officials told this newspaper that hospital authorities are supposed to treat and disinfect waste water — generated primarily from their laboratories, laundry of blood-soaked and dirty clothes and sheets, and water used to clean and disinfect different parts of a hospital.
Interestingly, one of the standard tests for effluent generated from hospitals (the Bioassay Test) says the survival rate of fish after 96 hours in such water should be 90 per cent.
While hospitals are required to fulfil these parameters, a whole lot of them have failed to do so, an APPCB official said. Many of these hospitals, when connected with sewers, operate without a terminal sewage treatment plant, and many are not connected to public sewers at all, the official added.
If fish cannot survive in this untreated water, one can imagine the level of contamination in such waste water, flushed in regular drains that find their way into water bodies and eventually back into the ecosystem, the official said.
According to the pollution control board official, 13 hospitals in the state have their own sewage treatment plants (STPs). While most corporate hospitals follow norms by cleansing their waste water, the “small hospitals” and, in certain cases, government hospitals are the main culprits, it was found.
“Any negligence in handling biomedical waste can result in unimaginable damage. But most people are unaware of the repercussions,” the official said.
The Board plans strict action against the errant hospitals, the official said.
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