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Monday, July 28, 2025

SWRHA denies biohazard waste piling up at SFGH

by

702 days ago
20230826
The amassed bio bags pile-up outside the  San Fernando General Hospital mortuary.

The amassed bio bags pile-up outside the San Fernando General Hospital mortuary.

KRISTIAN DE SLIVA

Se­nior Re­porter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As the stench of rot­ting bio­haz­ard waste mount­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH) yes­ter­day, work­ers were con­sult­ing with their unions, as they were con­cerned about their safe­ty.

Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day saw hun­dreds of red and yel­low bags piled up near the fur­nace on the com­pound, which work­ers said was down. It has been weeks since the bags be­gan pil­ing up, work­ers claimed. How­ev­er, there were men in pro­tec­tive gear mov­ing some of the bags yes­ter­day.

Con­tact­ed for a re­sponse on the is­sue, the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) said the sit­u­a­tion was un­der con­trol. The SWRHA said it was aware of pho­tos cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, re­leased by a staff mem­ber, which showed sev­er­al waste bags ly­ing in a se­cured area of the SFGH.

The SWRHA said it de­com­mis­sioned the fur­nace in favour of a new en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly Au­to­clave Unit, con­sis­tent with its thrust for a clean and healthy en­vi­ron­ment. The unit ster­ilis­es harm­ful bac­te­ria us­ing high-pres­sure steam­ing.

The au­thor­i­ty de­nied the work­ers’ claim that the waste had been there for weeks, say­ing it was on­ly a mat­ter of days and was al­ready be­ing tak­en care of.

“The tran­sient ac­cu­mu­la­tion of waste that oc­curred due to some tran­si­tion­al staffing is­sues is cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing the at­ten­tion of the Hu­man Re­sources De­part­ment,” the SWRHA said.


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