Treatment facility calls on DOH to strictly monitor hospitals

Pollution Abatement Systems Specialists, Inc. (PASS) is calling on the Department of Health (DOH) to strictly  monitor the solid waste management system of hospitals in Cebu to help the province achieve its bid to becoming a preferred medical tourism hub in Asia.

PASS, is the sole private-led company in Cebu that offers common treatment service for toxic healthcare wastes through its Autoclave facility in Inayawan.

PASS president and chief executive officer (CEO) Julieto Pugoy noted that there are still a lot of hospitals here that are not implementing sound waste segregating system.

Healthcare establishments may have segregated their hazardous healthcare wastes from the general health care waste but these are left untreated and disposed of in the municipal sanitary landfill or dumpsite for lack of an alternative treatment of disposal system.

The risk of transmitting diseases is aggravated by uncontrolled practice by waste workers and scavengers of collecting recyclables from hazardous health care waste during storage, transport and disposal. This practice has unnecessarily exposed the general public, health care personnel and waste workers to maximum health risk from communicable diseases.

PASS has joined former Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) secretary Elisea Guzon in her earlier call for hospitals in Cebu to comply with the laws in environmental proper waste disposal.

Guzon said DOH should lead in monitoring the hospitals, together with the Local Government Units (LGUs), to elevate the positioning of Cebu, as preferred healthcare destination of foreign medical tourists.

DOH-7 Sanitary Engineer Vivencio Ediza Jr., earlier also admitted that his department has observed that several district hospitals in the province are not doing the correct practice of segregating their wastes.

Realizing the DOH-7’s limitation in intensifying its monitoring capacity due to lack of manpower, Gozun said this problem, which could also affect Cebu’s positioning as medical tourism site, can be easily solved if the LGUs will cooperate and take actions on this serious matter.

Licensing is a critical mechanism that could push hospitals to set up good solid waste system, “LGUs must come in, and not just focusing on hospitals, but also funeral parlors.”

“We have laws and Implementing Rules and Regulations, we have to implement it. Collaboration between various sectors, like DENR, DOH and LGUs would play a very important role,” said Gozun who is also the chairperson for Solid Waste Management Association, and Earth Day Network.

According to Pugoy, based on PASS survey, some hospitals here are just implementing chemical treatment, but he described this method as “superficial” as it will just treat the surface of the wastes, not killing the hazardous micro-organisms. – Ehda M. Dagooc