Wednesday, September 7, 2011

PSWMB tackles issues on hospital wastes management in Sorsogon


by Irma A. Guhit

SORSOGON CITY , SEPTEMBER 7 (PIA).....The issue on the proper treatment, management and disposal of hospital wastes here in the province has been the focused-issue tackled yesterday during  the 3rd quarterly meeting of the Sorsogon  Provincial Solid Waste Management Board (PSWMB) held at Uncle Tat's Function Hall, in Pilar town.

Engr. Leonisa Madeloso , representing the Environment Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources(DENR) RO5 tendered a report on the monitoring, evaluation and assessment conducted  by EMB of the several hospitals here in the province  following the guidelines provided in RA 6969 in the proper disposal of hospital and hazardous wastes.

According to Madeloso, here in the province of Sorsogon they have conducted an evaluation of one public and one private tertiary hospital ; four secondary private and 2 secondary public hospitals and how these hospitals managed their wastes.

In the findings,  Madeloso said that all these hospitals use chlorine and lysol as  the standard chemicals for disenfecting hospital wastes.

Most of these 8 hospitals are without waste water discharge permits, some are without solid waste management reports and most of the mercurial wastes from busted florescent lamps are not safely disposed together with sharps and other hospital wastes.

EMB has already issued notice of violations and that they have dialogued with the responsible personnel on how these wastes should be managed so as not to affect the environment and create another public health problems.

Madeloso also recommended that proper signage should be placed on what kind of waste are these especially on the sharps that were just placed on plastic containers and not properly provided description.

"Sharps and syringes used should always be properly managed and placed in plastic containers and these containers should again be placed in cans and with proper signage and should never be disposed together with other hospital wastes" Madeloso said.

She also reported that some hospitals do not have Pollution Control Officers (PCOs) or if there is, most are not properly trained and should still undergo training.

"We at the EMB would like to recommend to the  local chief executives through the PSWMB  to make proper representations  to the provincial government  to ventilate these findings so that we can work together to help and assist in the concerns raised " Madeloso expressed.

"Proper report on what wastes are generated, volume and how these are treated, and disposed should also be made to keep track of the implementation of RA6969 which hospitals are required to do", Madeloso explained

Local chief ececutives present during the meeting were Mayors Alejandro Gamos of Sta Magdalena, Roque Carranza of Magallanes and Dennis Reyes of Pilar.

A consensus to raise the issue during the meeting of the League of Municipalities was recommended so that LCEs will be informed on how to ventilate the issues raised during the PSWMB meeting and how these issues can be resolve to make the hospitals within their municipalities compliant to the provisions of RA6969.

Also tackled during the meeting was the need to organize a Provincial Monitoring Team specifically for the purpose of monitoring and evaluating the implementation of RA6969.

Through the PSWMB it was agreed that a letter will be sent to the hospitals identified in the report given by Madeloso.

The letter will reiterate the compliance of the hospitals on the provisions of RA 6969 according to the agreements made in the meeting of the PSWMB.(PIA-SORSOGON)

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