Nearly 100 hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City are discharging 20,000 cu.m of untreated wastewater a day into public drainage systems, dirtying canals and rivers, said the city’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment. Currently, only one-third of the 139 hospitals have proper treatment systems, the department was quoted by the Vietnam News Agency as saying Wednesday. Head of the municipal Health Department’s Professional Division Pham Van Nghiem said that most of wastewater treatment systems at hospitals in the city were built years ago and downgraded. HCM City spends VND60 billion ($3.4 million) from its budget to build medical wastewater treatment systems a year.
