Medical waste to be cleared from Joburg hospital

JOHANNESBURG - Medical waste piled up at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital will be cleared, chief executive officer Barney Selebano said on Tuesday.

He said the hospital had spoken to a company to remove the waste.

“They indicated that they can even work through out the night to clear the waste,” he said.

He explained that the waste had not been removed for the past two weeks because the company contracted to clear it had stopped picking it up.

“We have paid. Them, we do not owe...,” he said.

Democratic Alliance Gauteng health spokesman Jack Bloom said the company Phambili Wasteman was refusing to pick up the medical waste because of a dispute over payment.

However, he said he had been shown receipts for payment, “so the fault appears to lie with the company, not the hospital or the Gauteng shared services centre,” he said in a statement.

Bloom said that during a visit to the hospital on Tuesday, he found boxes of fetid medical waste crowding the hospital’s basement.

Selebano said the waste was medical and contained no human tissue.

Phambili Wasteman was not available for comment.

- Sapa