Clinic's medical waste found in residential neighborhood

Material not hazardous; CEO says mishap 'not acceptable'

By Kayla Gahagan, Journal staff | Sunday, July 27, 2008

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Oxygen masks, syringes and rubber gloves strewn across Elm Street upset area residents, who contacted police and fire department officials Thursday.

Residents in the neighborhood reported seeing the medical supplies, which appear to have been used, at about 7:30 a.m. Thursday.

A Black Hills Surgery Center schedule was found among the items. Surgery center chief executive officer Bill May said Fish Sanitation picks up the facility's medical waste every morning and takes it to the landfill. He did not know how some of its material ended up on the street.

"We're investigating what happened," he said, including working closely with Fish and checking a security camera that records the garbage dump outside the surgery center. "We don't know what occurred, but it's not acceptable."

He said the medical supplies found on Elm Street, including the syringes, were not hazardous. There were no needles in the syringes. Such nonhazardous medical supplies, such as the ones found on the street, are discarded at the city's landfill in an area away from general trash.

Any biohazard chemicals, including needles and anything with bodily fluids, are hauled from the center in a separate van and incinerated, he said.

May said the doctors' schedule should not have been found because it should have been shredded at the office.

A Rapid City Police Department spokesman said that there were two separate reports involving medical supplies in that area Thursday. An officer responded to the first call in the morning to Elm Street and Fairmont Boulevard. They did find medical supplies, said Sgt. Cliff Peterson, but nothing dangerous.

"It was not a traffic hazard," he said. "It was contained in a box. There didn't seem to be anything hazardous at the time."

The department called and asked landfill waste workers to pick up the materials.

A second call in the afternoon reported medical supplies near Elm and East Idaho streets, Peterson said.

He said there is no way the material could have blown to Idaho Street from Fairmont.

"We think it's separate," he said.

By midafternoon, a police officer stopped near Idaho Street and the Rapid City fire department's hazmat team was called in to remove the supplies.

May said the surgery center will use the incident as an opportunity to learn so it doesn't happen again.

"If we need to tighten up our protocol, that's what we'll do, so there's not a repeat incident," he said.

Contact Kayla Gahagan at 394-8410 or Kayla.gahagan@rapidcityjournal.com