Editor,

REFERENCE IS made to the article, "Health Ministry grapples with risky waste Incinerators, AG report”, published in The New Times on May 29.

Allow me to set a few facts right.

There are certain procedures followed by all King Faisal Hospital staff in regards to giving information to the media. Therefore the "contacted officials” referred to in your article were right to advise your journalist to write a letter requesting to get the information needed about the incinerator. That is usually the standard procedure.

I found the article a bit contradictory and misleading. The article says that, "Besides the Mageragere bio-medical incinerator, the incinerators at King Faisal Hospital Rwanda, Central University Teaching Hospital of Butare (CHUB), Kabaya, Munini, Kibirizi and Ntongwe hospitals had problems and were not working since installation”. The same article, in later paragraphs pointed out that, "Incinerators at CHUB and King Faisal Hospital have been operational for a year, but pose a health and environmental hazard”. 

This left me confused. Did the writer mean to say that the incinerators are operational, or haven’t been operational since installation?

Allow me to clarify that King Faisal Hospital’s incinerator has been operational since May 2013 when it was installed, and it came with a one-year guarantee. This means that the faulty spare parts if any, that would otherwise cause the incinerator to break down and hence not function, are always replaced in time by the supplier.

I would like to add that the incinerator has never experienced any mechanical issues. This means that for the one year this incinerator has been at the hospital, it has been fully operational.

Due to financial constraints however, the hospital has not yet acquired a filter for this existing incinerator, hence the emission of hazardous dark smoke that was mentioned in the Auditor General’s report. This emission of smoke is guided by standards provided by the hospital’s relevant authorities.

We would however wish to assure the general public that this matter is being looked into since the safety of our environment is of paramount importance for all of us. We are committed to ensuring good health in a safe environment for all Rwandans.

Praise Asiimwe, Senior Public Relations Officer, King Faisal Hospital