August, 2015, I received many calls about medical wastes lying in local spaces. August is the month when the ill-effects of heavy rains start to show up. Water-logging  helps mosquitoes and other insects to breed. The water-logging infects the great drinking water reservoir 20-30 feet underneath the surface of the earth. In many places, thus infected water causes Cholera and Bloody Dysentery to the masses which cannot afford water-purifying systems. The food materials kept in open develop fungus on them. This all sends the number of patients soaring in the health clinics and private and government hospitals. A medical system of second-rate urban centers in India is not capable of  handling this much of medical waste coming out of a sizable population.


An effective management of medical wastes very strongly requires effective, big incinerators . A cursory survey of a small town in India, Nalanda, was enough to disclose that not a single nursing home or hospital had any incinerators. At some government hospitals, the medical wastes were kept in open for a week or two before they were burnt manually and poorly. But, not before stray dogs took away some part of it into the streets. No doubt, effective management of medical waste is somewhat costly, but it is needed to save our ecosystem.