Hospital officials testify

Hospital Superintendent Frank Bartolo yesterday told a board of inquiry that over the past two or three years he routinely checked skips at St Luke's Hospital to see what kind of waste had been thrown in them, in an attempt to ensure that hazardous waste ended up in the incinerator.

Dr Bartolo was testifying before the board probing allegations that human remains had been dumped at the Maghtab landfill.

The board of inquiry is headed by Judge Victor Caruana Colombo and includes Prof. Maurice Cauchi and Dr Victor Borg Grech, representing the government and the opposition respectively.

Dr Bartolo said hostpital had two kinds of garbage bags: yellow ones had to be used for biohazardous waste, while black or transparent ones were to be used for all other non-hazardous waste.

He said the hospital's Infection Control Unit, headed by Dr Michael Borg, had issued clear guidelines about which type of waste had to be thrown in which bags and that yellow bags were incinerated while the rest were dumped at Mghatab.

Asked whether there was compliance with the directives, Dr Bartolo said there were 3,200 employees in hospital, a quantity of whom were cleaners, and he could not exclude that some, either out of ignorance or because they wanted to cause problems, did not comply.

"However in my inspections I only found two yellow bags which were in skips meant for the disposal of domestic waste. Neither of these had any body parts and were incinerated," he said.

Dr Bartolo said bags containing body parts originated from the theatres, where staff were responsible and only yellow bags were used, as anything used in an operating theatre was biohazardous. Other sections of hospital produced biohazardous waste, but no other sections disposed of any body parts.

Dr Bartolo said the hospital was always trying to improve its waste disposal systems and tags were being introduced in all wards so that one could identify which ward a bag came from in case bags were disposed of irregularly.

The Director of Institutional Health Dr John Cachia said private clinics and private hospitals had waste disposal systems in place and biohazardous waste was often taken to St Luke's Hospital to be incinerated there. The department did not check to see what these did with their waste as the licence imposed obligations on them and it was their responsibility to comply.

"Once they have systems, one also assumes they use them," he said.

Dr Cachia said he was aware that the director of the environment protection department had the power to authorise controlled landfilling of biohazardous waste at Mghatab, but St Luke's did not have an open permit to landfill such waste. This would be sought from time to time when the outdated, 40-year-old incinerator broke down. But such cases were not commonplace, he said.

Dr Cachia said he could not rule out the possibility that cleaners sometimes used yellow bags meant for biohazardous waste for domestic waste simply because they did not have the right type of bag in hand.

The Director of Public Health Dr Ray Busuttil said so far as he knew, St Luke's Hospital had not asked for a permit to dump biohazardous waste at Mghatab.

He said he too was aware that the law gave the director of the environment protection department the power to authorise controlled landfilling of biohazardous waste at Maghtab, and he was aware that a private hospital had such a permit.

The inquiry continues.