Indian Society of Hospital Waste Management (ISHWM) Conference - New Delhi Habitat Centre 30th & 31st October 2010
15/11/2010
It was an honour to be invited as one of the three foreign speakers to the Society's annual conference in New Dehli at the end of last month. Originally Julie and Scott were going to attend together and jointly present a paper on the development of a customised vocational training award for the management and treatment of healthcare waste however die to circumstances beyond Julie's control she was unable to attend.
Scott therefore attended the two day event and presented the paper. The conference was extremely well organised by the Society and the quality of speakers was excellent. It was a full two day agenda with technical sessions and field trips organised by the Society. There was an impressive delegate list and every one of the sessions was extremely well attended even the final session on the Sunday afternoon was packed.
All of this is testament to the excellent work done by the Society's president Air Marshall Dr LK Verma who is a highly respected authority on healthcare waste management issues. He has presided over the society for 10 years now and has seen it go from strength to strength year on year. Scott spent time with him during and after the conference and even he was surprised at the success of this year's event. He explained that the formula and effort was the same as in previous years however this year there was a definite chord struck amongst the guest speaker and the delegates and there was a real impetus built to effect change.
This spilled over into a meeting of stakeholders Scott attended hosted by Mr Datta the World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in New Delhi. The meeting discussed building on the conference agenda and involved the Society represented by Dr Verma, the WHO represented by Mr Datta, the Ministry of Environment & Forests represented by their Regional Director Dr Rao and finally Scott representing the new vocational training centre, Trust Waste Management Limited. The meeting was excellent and hopefully something positive will come from the discussions.
In addition Scott managed to have some meaningful discussions with Ministry of health representatives from both Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Hopefully the concept of vocational training for healthcare waste management is something that can be developed further through discussion with the key stakeholders in each of these countries. Regardless of business opportunities arising or not it was an excellent opportunity to get first-hand experience of healthcare waste management in India, through the site visits to the healthcare facilities and the common treatment facilities, and to meet a really professional group of stakeholders.
Scott would welcome the opportunity to return to India whether on holiday or in a professional capacity.
The conference paper can be viewed here and the conference proceedings can be viewed here.