girls are
number
one —

THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER

pals

PAGE 39

December 11, 1988 News 985-2131 Classified 986-6222 Distribution 986-1337 56 pages 25¢

am Waste threatens

BIO-HAZARDOUS = waste
disposal costs are tUhreaten-
ing medical services ai Lioas
Gate Hospital.

: By TIMOTHY RENSHAW
= News Reporter

‘W's an intolerable situation,”’
LGH president Robert Smith said
Thursday. “We are obliged to
maintain a balanced budget, and if
we don’t get some relief in the next
month we'll have to stop doing
some things ”’

Smith sion had been
made as « vices would be

. cut if finanua: i .n for disposing

M =oof the hospital's biomedical wastes
was not forthcoming from the
province, but those cu:s would
begin in January.

Estimated annual cost to remove
the hospital's solid waste and to
ship its potentially hazardous
wastes to an incinerator in Fern-
dale, Washington, has risen sharp-
ly to $120,000. When the hospital
burned much of its bio-hazardous

. garbage in its own incinerators its
annual waste disposal costs were
a 6 $44,000.
° The increased cost is currently
being absorbed by the hospital,
and therefore cutting into the
funds available for other hospital
services.

Medical waste must be shipped
to the United States because there
is no facility in the Greater Van-
couver Regional District for
disposal of bio-hazardous waste,
which includes human_ tissue,
pathological waste, hypodermic
needles and material from infec-
tious patients.

Smith said LGH is willing to ar-
range for delivery of its bio-hazar-
dous wastes to the GVRD’s new
$75 million incineratur in Burnaby,
but incineration of such waste in
the facility has yet to be approved.

LGH produces approximately
112,600 pounds of solid waste and
approximately 17,000 pounds of
bio-hazardous waste each month.

As chronicled in a March 13

NEWS Terry
BROOKSBANK ELEMENTARY Schoo! Grade One siudents Brooke Spence (left) and Jonathon Jorgens
hold up decorations the two made for the school’s Festive Christmas open house. The December 14 event
a # at the North Vancouver school will feature a craft and bake sale, art display and choir singing. The event

will be from 7 to 9 p.m.

Injured hawk te return
to the wilderness: 3

$7120,000/ YEAR SPENT
ON GARBAGE DISPOSAL

News story, the hospital stated it
would stop burning its potentially
infectious wastes because LGH in-
cinerators could not be upgraded
to reach the temperatures required
to burn increasingly complex hos-
pital garbage and the growing
amount of plastic and disposable
products used in modern hospitals.

Costs to install incinerators that
could burn the hospital's current
waste production and still meet air
emission standards have been
estimated at $500,000.

In addition to the cost of ridding
itself of its bio-hazardous waste,

Smith
...kU’s an intolerable situation.”

LGH president Robert

LGH is faced with the uncertainty
of shipping it across a border that
could be closed to the waste at any
time and at the mercy of those who
handle the hospital’s regular waste
at the North Shore’s garbage
transfer station, Smith said.

Jf transfer station workers find
bio-hazardous waste in the regular
garbage trucked from LGH, Smith
said, the hospital could have its
garbage collection privileges
suspended by Wastech Services
Ltd., which is contracted to
operate the local garbage transfer
station.

Earlier this year some bio-
hazardous waste from: LGH was
accidently sent to the transfer sta-

See LGH
Page 2