A-G needs to investigate medical waste removal sooner rather than later

17 January 2016

Today I write once more to the Auditor-General to further investigate why Limpopo’s waste removal has payments with identically repetitive amounts to the cent (see below), when it is mathematically improbable. This is because medical waste is weighed and this is rarely if ever, the same month on month. 

The regulations that govern medical waste removal are necessarily very strict. Hospitals and clinics must segregate waste into five categories: (1) human or anatomical waste; (2) infectious non-anatomical waste; (3) sharps such as needles and syringes; (4) chemical including pharmaceutical waste; and (5) general waste. These are weighed on site for every collection event.

Categories 1-4 are considered to be hazardous waste and 5 general waste, the former attracting a much higher biohazard waste removal rate. A Waste Collection Document (WCD), also known as a Tracking Document or Waste Manifest or Dangerous Goods Declaration, must as a matter of law accompany each load weighed on site, from the point of generation to the point of disposal.

It is obvious that there are opportunities for corruption at each step along the way: (1) including general waste in the bio-hazardous category and paid for at the latter higher rate; (2) inaccurately calibrated weighing scales; and (3) inaccurate recording of weight.  But the most breathtakingly brazen and clearly illegal form must surely be when money is paid out as if it is a debit order unconnected to weight requirements:

 Source: Minister of Health: Written Answer to Parliamentary Question No.4146 asked by Dr. W G James (published on 20 November 2015). The Eastern Cape is not without its problems but it does provide an appropriate contrast on this particular issue. 

The medical waste removal business is notorious for tender corruption and collusion, poor segregation of medical waste and general waste, and gross episodes of infectious waste and needlestick dumping, especially in the Free Sate. By getting to the bottom of the finances as a first step, and as a second step investigating the weighing and billing system used by provinces such as Limpopo,  the AG would contribute greatly to cleaning up an awful bloody business.

The DA will continue to pursue the issue until public confidence in the biosafety of our health-care institutions is secured.

Statement issued by Dr Wilmot James MP, DA Shadow Minister of Health, 17 January 2016