VietNamNet Bridge – Four central hospitals in HCM City have been named in the Health Department’s list of the most polluting units with no standard waste water treatment systems. The hospitals have blamed this on the lack of money.

Old hat reasons cited

The waste water from the HCM City Transport Hospital in district 3 has been discharged directly to the sewer system of the local residential quarter without any preliminary treatment for the last many years.

Do Cong Huan, Director of the hospital, said the hospital was once a house, which has been used as a hospital since 1976, therefore, it does not have waste water treatment system. Meanwhile, the hospital does not have money to build a system itself.

He went on to say that the hospital has repeatedly asked for the budget to set up a waste water treatment system since 2007, but the budget has not been allocated so far.

Similarly, the Post Rehabilitation Hospital 2, the Post No. 2 Hospital and the Hospital for Orthopedic Rehabilitation under the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs have also reasoned the financial incapability to explain why they still have not built standard waste water treatment plants.

Hospitals treat diseases or cause diseases?

The list of the six hospitals in HCM City which discharged substandard waste water to the environment includes the Public Health Institute and Pasteur Institute. These are the healthcare establishments in charge of controlling and preventing epidemics for HCM City and southern provinces. However, it is the hospitals which have been discharging waste water and causing the environment pollution, thus worsening the underground water and the city’s people’s health.

Nguyen Van Hai, Deputy Head of Pasteur Institute, said he receives the documents from the Ministry of Health every year which asked to explain why the hospital cannot meet the standards in waste water. Meanwhile, Hai complained the HCM City Healthcare Department has never sent staff to the hospital to take water samples for testing.

He went on to say that the healthcare department needs to reconsider its management work itself. The hospital’s waste water treatment system has been put into operation since 2007 with the capacity of 200 cubic meters. The HCM City Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, which took an inspection tour in 2011, affirmed that the waste water could meet the standards.

Lacking money is not the problem

The inspection tours to the 12 hospitals in the south taken by the HCM City Institute of Health and Public Health have found out that besides the polluting substances such as organics, microbes, or bacteria, hospitals’ waste water also contains specific polluting substances, including the laundry chemicals and antibiotics residues.

However, these substances have not been included in the list of substances that need to be checked in accordance with the hospital waste water standards TCVN 7382:2004.

Dang Van Khoa, Chair of the HCM City Association for the Nature and Environment Protection, said the hospital waste water treatment has been raised as the burning issue at the National Assembly’s sessions for the last many years.

“Everyone understands well the possible consequences of the hazardous waste water from hospitals. This proves to be not an overly big problem which goes beyond the capacity of the healthcare establishments,” Khoa said.

“The key does not lie in the money, but in the fact if hospitals want to settle the problem,” Khoa added.

Compiled by Thu Uyen