From: Ian blenkharn@ianblenkharn.com
Category: Miscellaneous
Date: 29 Aug 2009
Time: 18:32:57 +0200
Remote Name: 217.43.109.120
QUEENSLAND Health has launched an investigation into claims that body parts and fetuses were dumped and buried at a rubbish dump on Thursday Island.
Investigators with the department's Ethical Standards Unit interviewed Thursday Island residents this month as part of an inquiry into allegations of official misconduct over the inappropriate disposal of human waste.
The investigation follows a whistleblower's complaint involving the discarding of anatomical waste from Thursday Island Hospital at a Torres Shire Council tip in the mid-1990s.
Not exactly a timely blowing of the whistle, was it? It took around 15 years!
Dr Whitby, who chaired a National Health and Medical Research Council committee on the disposal of clinical waste, likened the situation to "people being buried in a graveyard" in terms of the risks to other people's health.
Dr Whitby's comments ring true, and all the more so after such a long time. But it does seem rather unsympathetic to make such comparison in these circumstances, when public awareness it at its geatest due to press reporting!
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,27574,25990127-3102,00.html