VietNamNet Bridge – Only 49 out of a total 113 hospitals around HCMC have built and operated their own wastewater treatment facilities while the remainder either do not have such works or have not treated the toxic wastewater before discharging it to the environment, an environment official said last week.

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Nguyen Van Phuoc, deputy director of the city’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment, told the city’s People’s Council members that environment protection remained a big problem as many hospitals and manufacturers are still ignoring the need.

“Only 49 hospitals have built and operated their wastewater facilities properly, while 23 hospitals have no wastewater facilities and 41 others are still failing to treat the discharged wastewater though they have such facilities,” Phuoc told the council’s Economic and Budgetary Board.

Hospitals in the city are discharging some 23,000 cubic meters of wastewater daily, which is very hazardous to the environment, according to the department report released at the meeting last Wednesday.

It is noteworthy that several large hospitals still have no wastewater facilities though such clinics have been in operations for many years, including the People’s Hospital 115, Children’s Hospital 1, and Hung Vuong Hospital among others.

Many other large hospitals are still in the process of making projects for building and upgrading wastewater facilities, including Nguyen Trai Hospital, Saigon General Hospital, Dermatology Hospital, Tumor Hospital, Trung Vuong Hospital, Children’s Hospital 2, Tu Du Hospital and others.

Meanwhile, many manufacturers in the city still do not comply with decisions on cutting pollution, according to Phuoc.

Among 37 large pollution-causing enterprises in the city that were forced to remedy the situation under the central Government’s decision coded 64/2003/QÐ-TTg issued in 2003, seven still fail to deal with pollution properly at this time.

These seven enterprises are Ha Tien 1 Cement Factory, Posvina Company Limited, Viet Thang Jeans Company Limited, Saigon Tobacco Factory, Vinh Hoi Tobacco Factory, Saigon Beer Factory and Ba Son Shipyard.

The deputy director of the city’s environment department said the environment authority had carried out many solutions to quickly force these polluters to cut pollution.

For example, he said, the city has just forced Saigon Beer Factory to halve its production capacity from one million liters each year to 500,000 liters to reduce the pollution.