Three hospitals in the Santa Clara County healthcare system have been repeatedly illegally dumping medical and hazardous waste—as well as confidential patient records—over the past year or more, according to authorities.
Violations observed at the county-owned hospitals—including Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy—include the improper and potentially unsafe disposal of human flesh, blood-filled vials, fentanyl, liquid and solid hazardous waste items and more unauthorized refuse, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
Photos—released by the DAs office—of some of the unsafely discarded waste appear to show pieces of human organs, blood and dozens of vials of medications that had been thrown away in garbage compactors located at county hospitals.
The illegal disposal was documented by DAs investigators starting in November 2023, and had likely been ongoing before then, according to the DAs office. Much of the illegally dumped medical and hazardous waste likely made its way to local municipal and commercial landfills.
The violations were observed at SLRH, Valley Medical Center and O’Connor Hospital—all owned and operated by the county’s Santa Clara Valley Healthcare agency.
DA Jeff Rosen detailed the violations at a Dec. 5 press conference, and announced that his office will file a civil enforcement complaint against Santa Clara Valley Healthcare on behalf of the people of California. Penalties could easily reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“The county’s health and hospital system is run with taxpayer dollars,” Rosen said. “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 severity of the violations at all three county hospitals—SLRH, Valley Medical Center and O’Connor Hospital—is underscored by a state law that requires the producers of medical and hazardous waste to manage the waste from “cradle to grave” to ensure is proper storage, transport and disposal, says a press release from the DAs office.
For example, biohazardous waste must be segregated in red bags and incinerated or sterilized at high temperatures. The DAs investigation showed that Santa Clara Valley Healthcare’s hospitals did not lawfully dispose of its waste, resulting in tons of contaminated trash, says the press release.
In a statement, Santa Clara Valley Healthcare said its administrators learned about the systemic violations about three weeks prior to the DAs Dec. 5 news conference and since then has taken “corrective action.”
“Santa Clara Valley Healthcare understands the immense efforts and work invested by the (DAs) Office in reviewing medical and hazardous waste disposal and is taking the matter very seriously,” says the statement. “We are committed to adopting industry best-practices to prevent future occurrences and upon learning of the details…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.”
Santa Clara Valley Healthcare is the second largest county-owned health system in California.
The DAs office in November 2023 began sending trained investigators, clad in hazmat suits, to the three county hospitals to conduct a series of unannounced waste inspections, Rosen said. The investigators inspected the garbage compactors hauled away from each of the hospitals.
The local investigators were assisted by staff from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, which is part of CalEPA.
Among the prohibited items the investigators found while sorting through the garbage were human tissue; blood; vials of prescriptions drugs, antibiotics, anesthetics and even deadly 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, according to the DAs office.
Based on the pattern of violations found during all eight inspections conducted by the DAs office, authorities estimated that tens of thousands of pieces of medical and hazardous waste were illegally discarded in the trash at the three hospital sites just in the last year.
Supervising Deputy DA Bud Porter, who oversees the DAs environmental protection unit, said investigators think the hospitals had likely been illegally disposing of similar materials before the investigation began in November 2023.
As to how the county’s hospital system could allow such an apparently ingrained unlawful disposal pattern, Porter said it is clearly not the result of just one employee’s decision or action.
“Based upon what we found over time and the volume and different types of waste we found, it’s a systemwide problem and it indicates a lack of planning, lack of training, lack of oversight across the board,” Porter said.
The DAs office has not yet found evidence that the illegal medical and hazardous waste disposal has directly resulted in specific harm or contamination of public resources, Porter said. However, he noted that some of the waste in question is “potentially infectious or contains pathogens” that could be harmful to the public or wildlife.
“The issue is, the landfill disposal of hazardous and medical waste presents a threat or potential threat to human health and the environment,” Porter said.
The DAs office established an email tip line for county employees who are willing to provide more information about the alleged improper disposal practices; such information could include any health or environment damage that has not yet been reported. The DAs email address for such tips is St*************@da*.org.
In a separate investigation by the DAs office, authorities found medical and hazardous waste in the garbage compactors at Regional Medical Center in San Jose, which the county has expressed interest in purchasing. The DA is currently in negotiations over environmental enforcement with HCA Healthcare, the owner of Regional Medical Center and Good Samaritan Hospital.
State law allows civil penalties of up to $70,000 per disposal of hazardous waste; and up to $10,000 per incident of medical waste disposal, according to the DAs office. The law also gives courts the authority to issue injunctions to force hospitals to stop such misconduct.
