Billowing hospital smoke causes misery for residents

MARANYANE NGWANAAMOTHO
Staff Writer | Friday March 5, 2010 00:00

Thirteen months after the Ministry of Environment's dispatched officers to inspect the stack with a view to identifying possible risks associated with it and to advise the hospital on their finding, neither the hospital nor the health ministry has done anything to rectify the problem.

The Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism assigned a two-person team from its Pollution Control Unit in January last year to do an inspection of the stack and the immediate area, and also to interview residents and hospital staff following complaints from residents.   The inspection team noted, among other things, that the stack did not conform to the mandatory 'seven metres above rooftops', it has been built too close to residential houses - for example it stands only 20 metres from the nearest homestead, and residents were bound to some from 'fugitive smoke'. It is stated that homesteads 20 metres away from the boiler were bound to suffer the fugitive smoke.  

The team suggested that the hospital should install an air pollution control system or relocate. Perekisi and other neighbours who were similarly affected, to create a buffer zone.

However, the residents were unwilling to move, believing that the hospital would find other ways of dealing with the problem without relocating them.

One of the suggestions by the inspectorate team was that the incinerator should be relocated to the landfill and that fuel for the boiler should be changed. The incinerator burns coals.

The team also found other factors that might execerbate the problem.

These include the fact that incinerator operators were not trained, do not measure load to be incinerated as there was no scale. At the time the incinerator was broken and waste was as a result piled up, rotting and emitting an unpleasant smell.

The inspectors conclude thus: 'From the location of the complainant's premises it is clear that pollution from the incinerator could affect them the extent of this pollution could further be quantified by monitoring.

It is of utmost importance that the issue be addressed to protect publish health, which the aim of the hospital in the first place.

The inspecting team concurs with the complainants that she is subjected to both noise and air pollution.' 

Strangely, a year later, the hospital is yet to address the plight of the residents.

'I complained to the Ministry of Health last year and they have not addressed the issue, though the Ministry of Environment have submitted the report to them,' Perekisi told Mmegi.

Public Relations Officer at the Scottish Livingstone Memorial Hospial, Kefentse Mbaiwa, confirmed that the hospital was aware of the problem posed by the smoke stack and boiler room fugitive particles.

'However, the matter is with the Ministry of Health, which has promised to act on it.'