In a stunning press conference Thursday, Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said he will take the county to court because its county-run hospitals have been illegally dumping waste that included blood-filled vials, confidential patient information, fentanyl and human flesh.
“The county’s health and hospital system is run with taxpayer dollars,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said, as he stood next to grisly oversized photos of the kinds of bloody human waste his investigators found in hospital dumpsters. “The public needs to know what happened, and the county will not get a free pass when it comes to environmental protection and consumer privacy laws.”
The DA’s Office said it will bring a civil enforcement action against the county for the violations, which could result in stiff penalties.
Friday afternoon, the county health care system released the following statement to San Jose Inside indicating that the DA's dumpster discoveries had caught it by surprise. In the email from the county, there was no denial, simply a promise "to prevent future occurrences."
"Santa Clara Valley Healthcare (SCVH) understands the immense efforts and work invested by the District Attorney’s Office in reviewing medical and hazardous waste disposal and is taking the matter very seriously," the county said in its statement.
"We are committed to adopting industry best-practices to prevent future occurrences and upon learning of the details three weeks ago, immediately began implementing corrective actions to address the concerns, including reviewing and updating policies, creating an audit review process, and designating department liaisons to quickly facilitate necessary changes," the statement continued.
"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."
Rosen wasn't pulling any punches at his press conference.
“The severity of the violations is underscored by the state law that requires generators of medical and hazardous waste—including the county, which runs the state’s second-largest county-owned health system—to manage the waste from ‘cradle to grave’ to ensure its proper storage, transportation, and disposal,” Rosen said in a statement on Thursday.
Beginning in November 2023, trained DA investigators put on hazmat suits and conducted a series of unannounced waste inspections of the garbage compactors hauled away from Valley Medical Center, O’Connor Hospital, and St. Louise Hospital.
The DA investigators were assisted by employees from the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control, which is part of CalEPA. Among the prohibited items they found sorting through the garbage were: human tissue; fluid blood; non-empty vials of prescription drugs, such as antibiotics, anesthetics, and even fentanyl; over-the-counter drugs; liquid and solid hazardous waste items; batteries; e-waste; and hundreds of documents and labels with unredacted personal patient information.
Based on the pattern of violations found during the eight waste inspections, Rosen’s investigators estimated that “tens of thousands” of items of medical and hazardous waste were illegally disposed of in the trash by the three county hospitals in the last year.
State law provides for civil penalties of up to $70,000 per disposal of hazardous waste and up to $10,000 per disposal of medical waste. State law also provides for a court to issue an injunction to stop the misconduct.
For example, biohazardous waste must be segregated in red bags and incinerated or sterilized at high temperatures. The investigation showed that Santa Clara Valley Healthcare’s hospitals did not lawfully dispose of its waste, resulting in tons of contaminated trash.
Rosen invited any county employee who would like to assist the investigation by providing information about any improper practices should contact the DA's Office.
In addition, a separate investigation by the DA’s Office found medical waste and hazardous waste in the garbage compactors at Regional Medical Center, which Santa Clara County has announced it intends to purchase. The DA’s Office is currently in negotiations over that environmental enforcement action with HCA Healthcare, the owner of Regional Medical Center and Good Samaritan Hospital.
Meanwhile we have humans living in our creeks, dumping, urinating, and defecating daily in addition to illicit drug use and shoplifting, but the DA refuses to go after them.
The waste should have been handled properly, but the risks of sending landfill items to one facility or another are relatively low because the waste is handled the same way, by machines and then buried. If it went into recycling, that would be a huge no-no, as recycling involves a much higher potential for human contact and for entering supposedly “clean” (far from it) recycling streams.
Because of the top-down leadership from Newsom and the State AG Rob Bonta, there is a big push to go after deep pockets for largely common day-to-day errors. Did the DA immediately have the waste hauler notify the medical facilities, or did the DA hide their actions and wait whole year so as to turn a mole hill into a mountain of potential fines? Seems to me that deserves more attention from the reporters. If this happened, the facilities and investigative reporters should call out the DA for the legal shakedown while allowing a known hazard to continue.
In any case, hidden garbage snooping at an off site location is not a good plan for running our society. It invites both criminals and opportunistic shake-down artists to invade people’s private property. Can’t get blood out of a turnip, but can get billions out of legal shakedowns of people trying to do the right thing but making mistakes because everything is so cut down to the cost bone these days.