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Following is a question by the Hon Michael Mak and an oral reply by the Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works, Dr Sarah Liao, in the Legislative Council meeting today (January 22) :

Question

A case concerning improper disposal of human body specimens used for educational purpose in landfill was revealed early this month. Regarding the disposal of clinical waste, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) whether guidelines have been issued to public and private medical institutions regarding the disposal of human body parts;

(b) if such guidelines have been issued, whether the authorities concerned will impose penalties on the medical institutions which fail to comply with the guidelines; if penalty will be imposed, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and

(c) of the measures taken by the authorities concerned to monitor the transportation of clinical waste by the contractors, and the penalties imposed on the contractors who fail to comply with the procedures in disposing clinical waste?

Reply:

Madam President,

(a) Human tissues and body parts are mainly generated from major medical institutions including hospitals and medical faculties of universities. These institutions have issued internal guidelines on the management of clinical waste, which specify that human tissues and body parts should be separated from general clinical waste for cremation.

In addition, the "Practice Notes on the Disposal of Clinical Waste at Landfills" issued to clinical waste producers and collectors by the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) specify that human tissues and body parts should be incinerated and not be disposed of at landfills.

(b) At present, there is no legislation in Hong Kong that regulates the disposal of clinical waste. The Practice Notes and the internal guidelines issued respectively by EPD and medical institutions are for reference only and are not legally binding. The implementation of such mainly relies on self-discipline of the medical institutions.

We consider that the present lack of legislative control is not satisfactory and is not in line with international practices. Therefore, we proposed in 1997 to impose legal control on clinical waste, and consulted the relevant trades, professional bodies and the then Provisional Legislative Council. There were mixed opinions on the scope of the control and the treatment method for clinical waste. In 2001, we revised the proposed control scheme, and consulted again the relevant trades, professional bodies and the Legislative Council (LegCo) on the revised proposal. We are now preparing the relevant legislation and plan to submit it to LegCo for examination within this LegCo session, with a view to implementing the scheme in 2004.

(c) At present, there is no legal control on the operation of clinical waste collectors. However, if the above legislative proposal is approved, clinical waste collectors will be subject to legal and licensing control. Any person who collects clinical waste without a licence commits an offence, and will be liable to a maximum fine of $100,000 on conviction. The clinical waste collection licence will specify requirements regarding, among other things, the segregation, packaging, labelling, and transportation of clinical waste. If a licensed collector contravenes the licence conditions, he commits an offence and is liable to a fine of $100,000 for the first offence, and a fine of $200,000 for the second and subsequent offences. The collector's licence may also be revoked.

Before the above control is in place, we will continue to liaise regularly with the collectors and advise them on the good practices in handling clinical waste.

End/Wednesday, January 22, 2003

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