Shillong: Meghalaya Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh on Wednesday acknowledged that medicines have often been dumped in landfills. She assured that the health department will take steps to rectify this issue and ensure that it does not happen again.
She also said that a committee will be constituted to investigate the matter and give recommendations on how to prevent on how to prevent dumping of medicines at landfill sites.
“So, this is not the first time something like this has happened. I have been informed that these matters recur again and again. We are going to get on the job. We have to take necessary action,” said Lyngdoh.
She said, “We have to communicate very clearly to officials in the department that you are not permitted to do these things for various reasons, and once we have the inquiries ready, then I can share with the public on the actions to be taken and hopefully we will set this right once and for all”.
According to Lyngdoh, as far as dumping of medicines are concerned, the first option is the incinerator, followed by digging of pits at CHCs, and PHCs where there are huge consignments of medicines that can be taken care within their premises.
“Now through the strengthening of the health services scheme, we are also assigning additional funds to deal with this problem of disposal of medicines,” she added.
Lyngdoh informed, “So before you even talk about the disposal of medicines the DHS was mandated to actually form committees where pollution Control Board should be a member where the drugs authority is a member and from the DHS office you have members. You’re supposed to have a full indent of medicines, so we want to be open about this. It is not the right thing to do, these errors should not be repeated”.
On the issue raised by NGO that dumping of medicine could contaminate water sources, she said, “Now that it has been brought to my notice and that I have a full report available at my perusal, I feel that we have to set the record straight. I have told the MD of NHM to immediately form this committee which is an authorized committee”.
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“One can’t just walk in into the landfill and dispose whatever you want at your whims and fancies. There are procedures so if these procedures were adhered to likely we would have averted this error,” she added.
So far, the health minister has received a preliminary report from the level of the DHS. The report was shared with the bureaucrats to further probe on the matter and address the issue.
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