Wastes of 50 medical facilities remain uncollected

CEBU, Philippines — The Pollution Abatement Systems Specialists Incorporated (PASSI) has not yet resumed its collection of medical wastes after a week it secured permit from EMB.

Irene Boños, one of the pollution control officers of PASSI, said EMB has not yet granted the permits applied by the hospitals for the firm to collect the hospital wastes.

“Bisan og okay na among permit, kailangan pa mo-submit ang waste generators (hospitals) og application para makakuha silag permit to transport sa ilang wastes,” she told The FREEMAN. (Waste generators need to get a permit for their wastes to be transported.)

With this, she urged Environment Management Bureau-7 to process and release permits of the hospitals whose septic vaults are already full of wastes.

To recall, PASSI has not collected hospital wastes of over 50 medical facilities in Cebu City because their permits expired in June 2018.

Since then, PASSI has not collected the hospital and infectious wastes of these facilities.

Last January 24, Boños said the firm has secured the Treatment, Storage, and Disposal (TSD) permit from the EMB but the company is still waiting for the permit to transport of the hospitals for them to resume collecting hospital wastes.

She said the company will just wait until EMB releases permits of the hospital.

“Hangyo ra gyud namo nga mahatagan pod og permit ang mga hospitals na kay most of them nanawag nga puno na gyud ilang storage area,” she said. (We are hoping the permits will be granted to the hospitals as most of them have informed us that their storage are already full.)

Thousands of kilos of hospital wastes will remain uncollected because of this situation, she added.

Boños admitted that PASSI collected the hospital wastes of Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center last week because of “unbearable stench,” stressing that the septic vault is already full of wastes since June 2018.

While waiting for the permit, Boños said PASSI is preparing its storage area of the medical wastes in Barangay Inayawan.

She said the existing 854-square-meter facility can accommodate 1,184,000 kilos of hospital wastes. But it is now storing 646,562 kilos of medical wastes.

Boños said PASSI is applying for an expansion of its facility as it eyes to construct another storage area which has lot area of 2,974.80 square meters.

She said the company is still waiting for the EMB to act on its application for additional storage of medical wastes considering that 81 medical hospitals are currently in contract with the firm within Metro Cebu. (FREEMAN)