Hospitals deny lacking waste treatment units

JAKARTA (JP): Three hospitals denied yesterday reports that they did not have waste treatment facilities.

The private Ongko Mulyo hospital in Pulomas, North Jakarta said the hospital had the necessary equipment.

The hospital's maintenance chief, Bambang Estu, questioned the validity of city authorities' waste samples.

He said that last year waste samples were taken from a flooded part of the hospital's disposal system.

A representative of the public Fatmawati hospital, South Jakarta, said it had separate waste treatment units for each of its divisions but was building a centralized system.

The hospitals were responding to reports they were among 10 hospitals the city had punished for dumping untreated waste into rivers.

City Environmental Bureau head J.B. Damanik had said only 23 of Jakarta's 98 hospital had standard waste treatment units.

He had that last February the city sealed four hospitals' disposal pipes and gave written warnings to six others but none had reported on their progress in building waste treatment facilities.

The four hospitals to have their pipes sealed were Ongko Mulyo, Fatmawati, Persahabatan and Halim Perdanakusuma. The latter two are in East Jakarta.

Gatot Subroto hospital got a written warning. The hospital's maintenance chief Sunarto said the hospital had six waste treatment units.

"Our treated waste is always controlled by the agency in charge of the waste and the sample always meets tolerable limits," Sunarto said.

But the private Pasar Minggu hospital in South Jakarta said it did not have waste treatment facilities.

"The apparatus is too expensive, a small hospital like us can't afford it," a spokeswoman said.

She said the city's health agency's mayoralty office handled liquid waste.

In 1992 the Ministry of Health issued a decree requiring all hospitals to have waste management units. The decree gave hospitals three years to build the units.

In 1995 the governor issued a decree requiring all industries and hospitals to treat waste before dumping it into rivers.

The Pasar Minggu hospital executive said because the hospital was among the city's smallest with only 52 beds, the municipality should handle its waste.

"We would be prepared to pay fees (for the service)," she said.

Bambang said Ongko Mulyo hospital also hired a firm to manage its waste.

"The contract with the firm stipulates that if the waste gets out of control we don't pay them," Bambang said.

He denied the hospital's pipes were ever sealed. "If they had been sealed, the hospital would have been flooded". (05)