27/03/18

Preparing for installation in Pakistan

Within recent years we have seen our international reputation grow, as we work with increasing numbers of world aid agencies alongside governments in providing long-term solutions to treating the growing problem of increasing levels of Medical Waste.

In the final months of 2017, we were awarded our largest international contract to date to provide 13 MP500 (Medical/Pathological) medical waste incinerators complete with Venturi flue gas scrubbers and automatic loading systems.

With the first batch of machines already on the way to Pakistan, in March we were proud to welcome representatives from the Government of the Punjab alongside our distributor for Pakistan to visit our factory.  Able to see a number of their machines being completed as well as receiving hands-on training in the installation, commissioning and servicing of their machines ready for delivery.

We were able to spend a few minutes interviewing their Chief Technical Officer, Muhammad Junaid Rashid who is a part of the Biomedical Equipment Resource Centre (BERC) in the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department at the Government of the Punjab, Pakistan.

“I am based in Lahore in Pakistan and my department oversees healthcare, specifically relating to biomedical equipment management for the corrective & predictive maintenance, and more technical activities like inspections due to having a more technical side being an engineer.

This has been the first time that I have visited Addfield, this visit was to prepare for the pre-shipment of the incinerators as well as technical training to learn how to operate and maintain the equipment.

Addfield is one of a good company managed properly by employing international standards. They are taking care of all these things.  The manufacturing is very good and the people are all very supportive and friendly.  I have found everything to be fine here.

In Pakistan, we have faced problems while dealing with infectious waste of hospitals. There was no proper mechanism for ensuring the proper disposal of such infectious waste. Our Punjab Government has taken the initiative for implementing the hospital waste management system and taken many steps in this regard, as it is contaminating our environment. We have made a foolproof system for effective implementation of hospital waste management. We planned to install one incinerator in each of our districts. We collect the waste in refrigerated trucks and incinerate at incinerator site. We are getting thirteen machines from Addfield that will be installed across different locations throughout our thirty-six districts of the Punjab province.

We published a tender for these thirteen incinerators; eleven companies participated and Addfield won this on both technical and commercial basis. This is the main reason behind choosing to have this particular product in our country.

We found Addfield when we began the process of prequalification and started to review the vendors, manufacturers, and products as well.  We went through the main tender process with Vertex their distributor for Pakistan who is representing Addfield. They were the main introduction for us, during the tender process and introduced the Addfield solution to us and ultimately, they won the tender and the equipment is now being supplied to our country.

For treating our medical infectious waste, the Health Department decided that incineration would be the main solution for treating hospital waste in our environment. Incineration is a better approach and technology to get rid of these types of waste, especially hospital waste. Earlier it was just dumped somewhere or handed over to a third party.  In the future, we are looking to increase our number of machines, as well as looking at other options as recommended by Addfield.  We are looking at heat exchangers and introducing a turbine to create energy from the waste we burn, as heat is very good at being used for electricity conversion.

We all found the staff at Addfield to be very friendly and they were very honest, not avoiding answering any questions, even questions that they may not like. They would always answer each and every question. The working environment is very good and the people here are very fascinating and the interaction is very good and informative. They are also traveling Pakistan without any fear as they know that Pakistan is safe country and the international media is not giving the true picture of Pakistan.

Addfield has all the capabilities related to this project and they do have the knowledge and can manage the standards as well. Visiting the factory has helped us to see the machines in production and we now have a number of things that we would like to see changed and added to. I was able to discuss with the technical staff and have given them, as a customer what I foresee should be considered in the machines and what will be the added advantage for the customer as well as for Addfield. They have accepted my comments and said they will be considering these in the future as well.

On the whole, as I have already said everything has gone fine and everything in this particular visit with Addfield doing whatever they are doing it is good, we feel proud that we have selected a good and honest company for this Hospital Waste Treatment Project.” Muhammad Junaid Rashid

As with all of our visitors it was a pleasure to welcome them to our premises and look forward to meeting up with them again once all of our machines have been commissioned.

To learn more about the Addfield range of medical incinerators Click Here