Medical waste dump
Used needles and opened syringe sets dumped illegally by the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in a municipal road in one of the city's busy industrial and business area Futura poses serious health threats to the public.
POLOKWANE – Used needles and opened syringe sets dumped illegally by the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in a municipal road in one of the city’s busy industrial and business area Futura poses serious health threats to the public.
But despite numerous complaints, the municipality seems to turn a blind eye about this illegal and dangerous spillage of medical waste in a public space.
Review conducted an investigation on the site after it was recently contacted by discerned members of the public about opened hazardous medical waste as part of rubbish being dumped in Lood Street.
A photo clearly showing an EMS vehicle dumping waste at the site was supplied to Review.
According to a business owner in the street the medical rubbish has been lying there openly for 6 – 8 weeks without being removed and is also now causing a terrible smell and obstructions in the road.
Businesses in the area already made numerous complaints to the municipality but nothing has been done yet.
One owner said when his business reported the illegal dumping to the municipality by telephone they were told that “all their trucks are broken and the company that are subcontracted to clean up did not do the job.”
The Review was told that the municipality sends trucks to pick up the rubbish once in a while.
As a result and due to health concerns the business owners decided to jump in and resorted to burn the rubbish on the site every couple of months to lighten the load.
Upon further investigation, the Review indeed found that medical waste had also been dumped there.
This should raise alarms as it poses a health threat and is dangerous to the community as their usage is unknown.
According to the Department of Health, the policy on the disposal of medical waste states that “all medical waste must be incinerated for at least 1 second at 800 degrees in an incinerator with a valid licence”.
The policy further states that with regards to infection risk or potential, the waste should be completely eliminated over time and be unrecognisable as medical waste.
The dumping of the medical waste in Lood Street clearly violates this policy and the needles found at the site are potentially harmful and should raise the red flag for the municipality.
The Review attempted to contact the EMS, the Department of Health as well as the municipality but none were available for comment at the time of going to print.
