Ho Chi Minh City’s Orthopedics and Rehabilitation Hospital has admitted to discharging untreated waste into the environment. “The hospital is now upgrading and installing a new system to treat all wastewater,” Nguyen Dang Ngoc, deputy director of the hospital, said. He was speaking at a meeting with lawmakers who inspected the hospital’s waste treatment process on Tuesday. The 150-bed hospital, built in 1982, discharges 120,000 liters of wastewater every day, but only 50,000 liters are treated while the rest is discharged directly into the sewer system. Though the lawmakers’ visit was known, garbage continued to be dumped outside the stipulated area. Ngoc claimed the hospital’s garbage site was too small. The stink of medical waste usually affects a ward for providing physical therapy for disabled children. Nguyen Van Lam, a National Assembly deputy who led the inspection team, told Thanh Nien News that he has instructed the hospital to install a new wastewater treatment system. It would also have to create a new site for solid waste, he said. Pollution caused by hospitals, besides agriculture and industrial production, is thought to be among the causes for the presence of antibiotics and hormone-disrupting substances in the city’s water supply system. A…