All hospitals in city to have wastewater facilities by year-end
By Van Nam - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – All hospitals, healthcare centers and clinics in HCMC will have medical wastewater treatment facilities being up and running by the end of 2012.
Huynh Van Biet, deputy director of the HCMC Department of Health, was speaking at a question and answer session of the city’s People’s Council meeting on Thursday.
Statistics show there are currently 108 hospitals in the city, including 21 centrally-managed hospitals, 31 public hospitals managed by the city health department, 23 district-level hospitals and 33 private hospitals. There are also 285 healthcare centers and clinics across the city.
Biet said the total medical wastewater volume in the city is around 17,000 cubic meters per day, in which 16,000 cubic meters, or 95%, is treated.
However, at the question and answer session, the People’s Council deputies expressed concern that the amount of wastewater treated in line with environment standards did not reach 95% as reported by the health department. They said almost half of the big hospitals in the city failed to satisfy the standards for medical wastewater treatment and had not invested in wastewater treatment systems
According to the Economic and Budget Committee under the HCMC People’s Council, of the 285 healthcare centers citywide, there are some 200 dental clinics where wastewater is not treated.
As for the public hospitals, Biet said their wastewater treatment systems would get off the ground late this month and be completed by December 10.
According to the health authority, healthcare centers that fail to install approved wastewater treatment systems before September this year will be forced to suspend operations in accordance with the Environment Law.