Virginia hospital faces hefty fine for medical waste disposal offense
For the second time in less than a year, Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital has been cited for throwing out medical wastes with its regular trash. This environmental offense will cost the hospital $40,000 in state fines, according to an article in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star published on Aug. 17.
The case, proposed for settlement this week, is the latest in a spate of incidents involving mishandled medical waste. Five other Norfolk area hospitals and clinics have similarly violated state hazardous-waste regulations since 1999, according to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
Other recent violators are a clinic at Hampton University, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Chesapeake General Hospital, Riverside Medical Center in Newport News and Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth, VA, according to state officials and records.
Medical waste must be handled separately
No one has gotten sick from exposure to blood or bacteria as a result of the infractions, officials say. Still, regulators caution that hospitals and other facilities must be more diligent in obeying state rules requiring basic trash be separated from medical wastes that can harbor infectious diseases.
Regulated hospital wastes are supposed to be gathered in red "biohazard" bags, which then are collected by a special contractor who usually will incinerate them.
But when buried in solid waste landfills or burned with household trash, hospital wastes can pass on potentially harmful bacteria and diseases to groundwater supplies, soil and air.
Past infringements
After paying a $33,000 penalty in December for a series of disposal mishaps in 1999, Sentara has agreed in a settlement released this week for public comment to pay an additional $7,700 for a similar incident in April.
At that time, state inspectors found used syringes, a plastic bag with "free-flowing red liquid" in it, bloody gauze, tainted swabs and rubber tubing mixed with a load of normal garbage. Documentation accompanying the bloodied refuse pointed to the hospital, according to state records.
Tossing out bloody refuse with normal trash—an action that saves money and record-keeping hassles—became a high-profile political issue in 1999. An angry Governor Jim Gilmore held a press conference last February to denounce the illegal dumping of medical wastes into a Charles City landfill by a private company.
State inspectors had videotaped the dumping by Waste Management Inc., a Texas-based conglomerate that had signed an agreement with Virginia officials only months before promising not to mix medical waste again.
Shoddy housekeeping and carelessness are to blame
The local violations do not appear intentional, officials agreed. Instead, they seem to stem from shoddy housekeeping, staff carelessness, inexperience or, more simply, the hectic nature of hospitals, state and local officials said.
"Clearly, our take on this is that none of it appears to be malicious," said Dan Miles, environmental manager for the Southeastern Public Service Authority. "That doesn't mean we aren't concerned, though."
Employees at SPSA, the local trash agency, are usually the ones who discover medical wastes mingled with regular garbage. Some have been stuck by dirty syringes. But none have contracted illnesses after being pricked, Miles said.
"These folks don't know what's on that needle," Miles said. "The only thing they can do is wait and hope that tests come back showing nothing's wrong. It's not something you want to go through."
SPSA has reacted to the recent spike in medical waste cases by sponsoring informational seminars with area trash haulers and hospital managers, said Felicia Walker Blow, SPSA's public affairs coordinator.
Likewise, the state Department of Environmental Quality has contacted waste managers to remind them of their legal obligations. The agency also has sought fines in waste cases, however innocent the infractions, to drive home a point, officials said.
Source: The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA
Edited by Kate Goff
Editor, Solid Waste Online