Eyeing Tourism

THE news has it that the government is charting out a master plan for boosting tourism industry in the country. In fact, the master plan for guiding and promoting the country’s only forex earner was needed decades back. But it is always better late than never. We have lots of potentials in this industry but we have not been able to cash them in time. The other reason behind the slump in this industry is that it gets hit hard whenever any untoward incident occurs. The first and foremost challenge for the government, therefore, lies in creating an environment that ensures comfort, facilities, peace and security to the tourists. However, it is not late yet. We still have time to bring about changes in this sector by using tourism industry itself as a tool for advancement of the economic sector. And for that we need to strengthen our policies and programmes by introducing certain long-term plans that best address the shortcomings and problems of the industry. For us, tourism still remains a very suitable and profitable industry for the days to come as the concept of village tourism is gaining ground and tourists are paying much attention these days towards exploring the culture and tradition of the people of the country where they are visiting.

It is not only a claim as surveys done elsewhere also found out Nepal as one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the world. The country comes after New Zealand, according to a survey by two British periodicals—observer and the Guardian—as to the most preferred destination Nepal can again take advantage of the floor that is going to be provided by South Asian Growth Quadrangle (SAGQ) in terms of tourism industry. When the SAGQ members, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh, are mooting to exploit their natural resources to attain common goal of economic development in the region, Nepal, as a member country, can cash it in many ways. With the commitment made by the SAGQ in its just held second meeting to accelerate economic activities through the development of human resources and tourism industry, it could be fairly said that the tourism industry goes well not in isolation but in joint efforts also.

Harmful Wastes

IN a workshop-cum-seminar organised in the capital city the other day to give information about the guidelines for hospital waste management, it was revealed that every year the nation’s hospitals and nursing homes generate over 500 tonnes of waste. To know that hospitals and nursing homes are generating waste is not unusual. After all, hospitals and nursing homes, be they in the public sector or private sector, are service-oriented entities. As such, thousands of people pass through the portals of these medical health care and delivery institutions every year. Be it for minor aliments or major maladies, the hospitals and nursing homes, while dispensing with their curative services to these seekers of medical care and services, would also be generating wastes. And the amount of waste produced is directly linked to the number of patients that these health-oriented institutions treat every year. Undoubtedly, the general hospitals, compared with district-level hospitals or nursing homes, create more waste than the latter. Nevertheless, all of them generate wastes—and which should and must be properly disposed off by the concerned hospitals or nursing homes’ authorities.

However, there is a marked difference between the wastes generated by households and those produced by the hospitals and nursing homes. If the rubbish created by the households is deemed to be harmful to human health only when the trash is allowed to rot in the open, then the wastes generated by the hospitals and nursing homes, whether they are properly or improperly disposed off, are considered by all to be highly harmful to the people’s health. The main reason being that the wastes produced by the hospitals and nursing homes while treating their patients invariably contain pathogens of the various aliments afflicting the patients. Though not all pathogens wastes are considered to be dangerous to human health, some are. Especially those microbes of some contagious maladies that are noted for their uncanny ability to survive outside the human body and system—and go on to infect human being. The more so if hospitals and nursing homes’ wastes containing such bacilli, for want of proper disposal procedures and equipment, are not destroyed immediately and completely. Or, worse still, get recycled through garbage collectors’ nefarious activities. It is for this very reason that the health authorities have made it mandatory for hospitals and nursing homes to instill incinerators and follow strict waste disposal procedures.