A dispute over non-payment of the rental of a refrigerated container with medical waste inside on Wednesday caused a hospital group in East London, Afrox Healthcare, to end immediately its medical waste-removal contract with a nationally based company.
This drastic step came after an electrician last Friday cut the power supply to a container in which medical waste, including body parts, had been stored.
Afrox Healthcare corporate communications manager Marietjie Shelley said the hospital group only heard about the feud over the rental of the container between the waste-removal group and the container company on Wednesday.
Shelley said Afrox Healthcare has also been unhappy with the slow collection of medical waste from its hospitals in East London by Evertrade Medical Waste, the company that is contracted by the health-care group.
Shelley said East London is the only centre where Evertrade uses a holding site, Container World in this case, to store medical waste. In all other centres, medical waste is taken directly to disposal areas and incinerators.
She said last Friday a routine meeting was held between Afrox Healthcare’s infection control and safety, health, environment and quality coordinator, Erica Bezuidenhout, services manager Shirley de Beer, and Evertrade at Container World’s site on the West Bank.
She said no one had told the Afrox Healthcare representatives of any problems between Evertrade and Container World over the non-payment of rental for the refrigerated container.
Shelley said Evertrade collects three types of medical waste from the hospitals. The waste is disposed in yellow containers, which contain infectious waste such as bandages; red containers, which contain anatomical waste such as body parts; and small yellow containers, which contain sharp waste such as needles.
She said the containers are sealed at the hospitals and taken to the site where the waste is put either in a refrigerated, sealed container under lock or in a small building with freezer container capacity.
Shelley said the waste is collected every second day from the hospitals and removed by Evertrade from the site for final disposal on a weekly basis. She said, however, that Afrox had been unhappy with the collection service from the hospitals over the past two weeks.
This issue has been discussed by Afrox Healthcare national safety, health, environment and quality manager Yolanda Burger with Evertrade’s head office.
Shelley said Afrox Healthcare has always been very concerned about medical waste disposal and safety.
She said both representatives from the municipal health authority and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, who have visited the site, have expressed their satisfaction.
After hearing on the grapevine that an electrician had been instructed by Container World to cut the power supply to the container, Afrox Healthcare immediately ended the East London contract with Evertrade.
Shelley said Millennium Waste has been contracted in the interim to take over the contract and its representatives had been on site on Wednesday to remove the medical waste.
This arrangement will remain in place until February. Afrox Healthcare has put out the contract to tender and five companies are on the shortlist. — Sapa