Investigations of potential medical-waste dumping in Yen Phong District’s Van Mon Commune revealed the site contained normal waste, Nguyen Dinh Tam, deputy head of Bac Ninh Province’s Health Department, said.

Tam said, following claims that Bao Ngoc Limited Company was illegally gathering medical waste in the commune, a joint inspection team with representatives from the health department and the provincial police had examined the dump site in Van Mon Commune’s Quan Do Village.

The waste includes mainly infusion bottles, empty medicine bottles, syringes and needles, inspectors said.

However, they haven’t found any medical bottles with warnings of hazardous waste on their labels. Some bottles were found without labels due to having been discarded a long time ago.

Inspectors have taken some samples for testing to check whether these bottles contained hazardous waste.

Bao Ngoc Company officials told Bac Ninh Police they had bought the waste from hospitals, such as Military Hospital 110, Thai Nguyen General Hospital and Quang Ninh Obstetrics and Pediatric Hospital. However, they failed to present any valid contracts to the police.

Police said the purchase of medical waste from hospitals by the company was illegal as it had not obtained a licence for collecting and treating waste in accordance with state law.

The investigation into the incident is still underway.

Under the Ministry of Health’s regulations, medical waste must be properly classified for special treatment.

Healthcare clinics have to sign a contract with authorised waste collectors for the disposal of medical waste. 

VNS