RESPONSIBILITY-sharing in waste disposal is the name of the game at the Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital (GCGMH), a non-devolved tertiary hospital still under the Department of Health. A patient’s relative who visited here last week bared that the management of the hospital made their patients to gather their wastes, such as plastic wrappers or cellophane they generated during their confinement and bring them home. She said this was the first time they were made to make this happen. The move came as an offshoot of the city government policy declared by Mayor Dan Neri-Lim following the closure of the dump-site in barangay Dampas for environmental and health reasons. GCGMH’s Dr. Edgar Pizarras, in an interview yesterday, confirmed the move of the hospital management, saying this was its way in the meantime while it cannot throw the wastes generated by the hospital in the dumpsite. But he hastened to say that the hospital’s management only “encouraged” the patients to have a share in rubbish disposal because of the prevailing condition in the existing dumpsite.

Asked if the incinerator machine long before acquired by the hospital was being used, he answered in the negative. He said the said machine cannot be utilized for rubbish disposal since this has been disallowed by the law. But he did not answer on the inquiry on where the hospital throws or dumps its wastes accumulated everyday aside from those of the patients given the present situation. Mayor Lim decided to close down the dumpsite in an apparent move to abort the worse case scenario following the irrepressible gathering and scattering of recyclable solid wastes in the dumpsite by the scavengers. The mayor said in his radio program that he exerted efforts to solve the problem. His administration is also scouting available heavy equipment to put in proper place the garbage in the dumpsite. He is even eyeing to rent equipment operated by the provincial government if the latter accedes.

Gov. Edgar Chatto who is also reportedly concerned over the garbage disposal plight has signified to let the city government lease the equipment needed. The city badly needs a bulldozer and a backhoe or similar equipment to do an appropriate garbage piling, the report said. The city also is reportedly appropriating funds for the repair and maintenance of its fleet of garbage trucks. Some of these trucks have bogged down. Garbage trucks and equipment are said to be very vulnerable to deteriorate faster than normal because of the toxic wastes.