Last week, as the country’s attention was transfixed on the manhunt for the person who gunned down a health insurance executive—which resulted in an outpouring of personal stories about patients being mistreated by the nation’s medical care system—the Santa Clara County DA’s Office held a press conference to reveal environmental and privacy abuses by health care officials closer to home.
Prosecutors said Dec. 5 that tons of contaminated trash had been improperly disposed of by County-run facilities.
The hazardous and medical items they’d turned up included vials—with antibiotics, anesthetics and fentanyl still inside—blood, human tissue and electronics. They said they’d also discovered hundreds of documents with unredacted patient information.
“Part of our bringing this forward is to encourage quick compliance from the County, so as not to erode the community’s trust,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen told reporters, adding those concerned their private details may have been compromised can contact his office via st**************@da*.org to find out.
“The concern for what can happen when this kind of medical waste—toxic materials, flammable materials—are put in a regular landfill, I would just refer you to Chiquita Canyon in Southern California, in Santa Clarita, where a 30-acre landfill that was contaminated with medical and hazardous waste is essentially on fire underground. And hundreds of gallons of liquid that is contaminated has to be pumped out of that landfill every single day.”
(Drew Penner / Los Gatan)
Prosecutors targeted O’Connor Hospital and Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, in San Jose, and St. Louise Regional Hospital, in Gilroy, in a series of stings, and say they found violations each time.
A spokesperson for the County’s hospital system acknowledged the “immense efforts” invested by prosecutors, and said it’s taking the problem seriously.
“We are committed to adopting industry best-practices to prevent future occurrences,” said Roger Ross, the County’s assistant director of communications and public affairs.
He said the County learned the details of the investigation three weeks earlier and immediately began addressing the situation—including updating policies, creating an audit review process and designating people to make necessary changes quickly.
“We take environmental stewardship and the confidentiality of patient health information seriously and are working to strengthen our efforts in these areas while still delivering high-quality patient care,” Ross said.
We spoke with Bud Porter, the supervisor of the DA’s Environmental Protection Unit—which is made up of two prosecutors, a supervisor and two investigators—to learn more about the probe.
Drew Penner: Why should the average person care about what you’ve uncovered?
Bud Porter: One, as it relates to the County’s operations, the public pays for this. So, when the County does something well, we should hear about it. When the County’s doing something wrong, we should know about it. And that’s what this is about—is to shine a light on what the County has done wrong, so they can fix it. As far as why should the public care—about a business or a County department throwing away hazardous waste or medical waste illegally—it’s the law in the state of California. These laws have been on the books for decades.
And the legislature, when it comes to hazardous waste, they increased the penalty in about 2018, from a maximum fine of $25,000 up to $70,000 per violation. Not just per disposal, but per violation: You didn’t fill out your paperwork. You had it hauled by somebody who wasn’t licensed. You didn’t train your people. There’s all sorts of underlying violations, besides the actual disposal violation.
(Drew Penner / Los Gatan)
When it comes to medical waste: You didn’t get a permit. You didn’t plan. You didn’t train people. You didn’t segregate the waste into different containers. So, yeah, it’s very complicated when it comes to following all the rules and regulations of medical waste and hazardous waste. But in the end it’s kinda simple: Don’t throw this stuff in the garbage.
When it comes to patient information, people should care because it’s a loss of privacy. It’s a loss of trust in your care team. People want to feel like, when they go into a closed medical office, with their doctor or their nurse, that they can share information with their name and condition, or date of admission—is not going to be just thrown in the garbage. When it comes to hazardous waste and medical waste going to the landfill, it’s not oaky. Medical waste should be incinerated or sterilized before it goes anywhere—before it goes to a landfill. Hazardous waste should go to a hazardous waste landfill.
If you throw hazardous waste and medical waste into the regular garbage and it goes to the regular landfill, you’re exposing the waste hauler employees to that. Hazardous waste is stuff that’s corrosive, toxic, flammable, kills fish—that’s why it’s considered hazardous. So, that stuff in the landfill is gonna seep down through rainfall and anaerobic digestion and create leachate—or liquid—at the bottom of the landfill. And like Jeff mentioned about Chiquita Canyon, so much liquid’s being generated that they can’t even handle it all—400,000 drums a day. That’s containing benzene.
Drew: Do you get proof that shipments of medical and hazardous waste did end up in area landfills?
Bud: We looked at eight waste inspections over the course of a year. But some of these hospitals had their compactors picked up three times a week. Some of them had their compactor picked up one time a week. So that’s 52 times a year, or 156 times a year, right? You can do the math.
We only looked at eight. But based upon the magnitude and volume of what we found in each of these eight compactors, we have no reason to believe that the other hundreds of compactors over the course of the last year would look anything different. All eight had hundreds of violations of medical waste and hazardous waste.
Drew: Were you able to figure out the motive behind the illegal medical dumping?
Bud: Obviously the County can’t operate without employees.
The employees are the ones who are doing this. Why did a particular employee throw something in the garbage? Was it intentional? Was it negligent? What was the motive? You’d have to ask the County.
