Hospital Found Throwing Medical Waste in Landfills

Hospital Found Throwing Medical Waste in Landfills

Feb, 2008  - The Pennsylvania 
Department of Environmental Protection today fined the Pocono Medical 
Center $100,000 for illegally disposing and managing infectious and 
chemotherapeutic waste in 2006. Pocono Medical Center is an acute-care, 
not-for-profit community hospital in in East Stroudsburg, Monroe County. 
"The medical center was not following procedures for separating its 
medical waste from its normal solid waste," said DEP Northeast Regional 
Director Michael Bedrin. "They shipped it to two regional landfills where 
it was found and removed for proper disposal." 
The illegally disposed waste from the medical center was discovered in 
Lackawanna County’s Keystone Landfill and the Grand Central Landfill in 
Northampton County in April 2006, after DEP began investigating the waste 
sent to those facilities. 
The department also determined that Pocono Medical Center failed to 
properly label containers of infectious waste and failed to ensure that an 
employee involved with packaging infectious waste wore protective overalls 
and gloves. 
A notice of violation was sent to the medical center on August 1, 2006, 
that documented the illegal disposal and the improper procedures at the 
center. 
According to the notice, Pocono Medical Center was to submit a plan and 
implementation schedule addressing the violations. 
DEP worked with the medical center to address the problems, and the most 
recent inspection of the facility in June 2007 determined that it had 
taken measures to correct and prevent the violations. 
"We feel this fine reflects the seriousness of the violations, in which 
people, waste haulers and landfill employees could have been at risk of 
contact with this medical waste," said Bedrin. "The medical center has 
implemented internal procedures required by DEP to prevent this from 
happening again." 
Pocono Medical Center is the sole provider of hospital services for Monroe 
County. The next hospital is 35 miles away. Currently 215 physicians are 
on the medical staff covering more than 30 specialties. The Mattioli 
Emergency Center at the hospital is one of the busiest in Pennsylvania, 
recording nearly 70,000 visits annually. 

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