Many Question Marks Around Work St WASPAR After Government Intervention September 2022 Dagblad Suriname

The Private Hospital Laundry Foundation (WASPAR) still does not have a Nuisance Act permit, which would prevent the company from carrying out its activities, including the incineration of hospital waste in ovens The editors of dagblad suriname learned this from the field.

However, it is unclear whether WASPAR is operating today To questions from the editors of Dagblad Suriname, the company on the Drambrandersgracht in Paramaribo remains silent.

The district commissioner of Paramaribo North-East, Ricardo Bhola, also does not respond to questions, despite repeated requests It is therefore a precarious situation for a company in a residential area that, among other things, burns hospital waste and causes nuisance to local residents.

A company that should never have been allowed to operate in an inhabited area WASPAR activities discontinued in September 2022 The activities of WASPAR were temporarily halted in September last year after persistent complaints from local residents, businesses and a school in the vicinity that the company burns medical waste and archive material and that they were inconvenienced by this.

Incinerators do not meet the requirements On September 8, the national coordinator of Neighborhood Management, Henry Kia, visited Waspar with two neighborhood managers and employees of the Paramaribo Northeast Commissariat After inspection, the company turned out not to have a Nuisance Act permit.

A complaints committee had previously also found that the ovens do not meet the requirements for incinerating waste This committee consisted of representatives of the Administrative Service, the Suriname Police Force, the Fire Brigade, the Bureau of Public Health (BOG), NIMOS (National Institute for Environment and Development in Suriname) and representatives of the Ministries of Economic Affairs, Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation, Labour, Employment and Youth Affairs, Public Works and Spatial Planning and Environment.

“No idea” When asked what the state of affairs is at WASPAR today, Minister Riad Nurmohamed replied to Dagblad Suriname on Monday 6 February: “No idea” In the fall of 2022, his ministry was on the complaints committee that had established abuses at WASPAR.

Since August 9, 2022, the WASPAR Facebook page appears to have no longer been updated The company also does not respond to questions from the editors of Dagblad Suriname, including the question of whether the incinerators now meet the requirements and whether WASPAR now has a Nuisance Act permit.

The question also arises of what a hospital like the Academic Hospital Paramaribo (AZP) has been doing with its waste since September 2022, which was always delivered to WASPAR The director of the AZP, Claudia Marica-Redan has not responded to questions about this issue from the editors of Dagblad Suriname.

Harmful substances Burning waste material releases harmful substances, such as dioxin, which are harmful to human health In September 2022, the complaints committee had sent a full recommendation on this problem to the District Commissioner (DC) of Paramaribo-North-East, Ricardo Bhola.

As a result of the shortcomings found and the fact that they did not meet the permit conditions in September last year, the management of WASPAR was told not to use their incinerator for the time being october 2020 dagblad suriname already reported critically on October 23, 2020 about WASPAR and the lack of transparency and openness when it comes to hazardous waste types that the company must incinerate.

Who or what is WASPAR? The Private Hospitals Laundry Foundation, located on the Drambrandersgracht in Paramaribo, is an organization that provides laundry services and the destruction and processing of hospital waste Waspar was founded on November 11, 1978 by the Diakonessenhuis and the St.

Vincentius Hospital Waspar's goal was to provide laundry services for the founders.

In 2002, the foundation received an incinerator, which enabled it to start processing medical waste and archive documents Since then, the company has suffered a number of furnace failures.

Dagblad Suriname had approached WASPAR in October 2020 with only five specific questions to find out how the foundation fared in the Covid pandemic, but the foundation stated in a short response that it "has no need" to respond When asked why not, there was no response.

There seemed to be and still seems to be no question of any transparency today Dagblad Suriname wanted to know, among other things, whether Waspar still had three working incinerators at that time, whether it received waste from all hospitals, how much waste is processed/burned on a daily or weekly basis, whether it receives radioactive waste from hospitals and, if so, what happens to it.

But, answers were not forthcoming Transparency completely lacking at company that processes hazardous waste There is still no transparency at all at WASPAR.

Substantive and financial annual reports are not published, or at least not made public Figures on the numbers and types of waste that are incinerated and otherwise processed, on the storage and processing of radioactive waste, etc.

, therefore remain hidden A bad thing, especially since it concerns environmentally harmful substances that are released during the combustion of materials and that in an inhabited environment with even an EBGS primary school on the other side of the company.

There may be a high health risk for local residents and students of that school October 2019 3rd furnace commissioned In October 2019, the then Minister of Health, Antoine Elias, commissioned a third incinerator at WASPAR with much fanfare.

When it was taken into use, the foundation announced that with the third oven 'medical waste can be processed in a responsible manner' Some of the company's employees have been specially trained to work with the oven.

Incidentally, the organization often had to contend with a faulty oven WASPAR announced on its Facebook page in mid-September 2019 that people can go there for the processing of waste.

'Think, for example, of medical waste, used needles, expired medical equipment, old archive documents or expired passes/cards Prevent unnecessary accidents and pollution.

Let us process your waste Incinerators may not be placed in residential areas.

Further investigation and relocation of WASPAR necessary The foundation therefore did not and still does not provide any openness WASPAR should be obliged to display transparency, to publish figures relating to the processed and incinerated waste.

The incinerators within the company should also be checked systematically Incidentally, in essence WASPAR should simply be moved to an area far from inhabited buildings.

The silence of the authorities involved may indicate that possibly after the action in September last year, when work had to be stopped, nothing has actually changed and the company may still be processing waste, including in ovens Such a business in inhabited areas is irresponsible and actually prohibited.

Strong intervention by the authorities therefore appears to be an urgent necessity PK.