Illegally disposing of medical waste will cost Cascade Healthcare Community, parent company of St. Charles Medical Centers in Bend and Redmond, more than $119,000 in fines, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The Bend hospital violated state laws 34 times on 17 different days between Oct. 21 and Jan. 25, said Susan Christensen, of the DEQ’s Bend office. The violations included sending bloody tubing, bone parts, cartilage, body tissue, syringes containing blood, needles, bloody plastic bags, plastic catheters and biohazard bags containing unknown infectious waste to the Deschutes County Landfill.

”We take the improper disposal of infectious waste seriously,” Christensen said. ”That is reflected in the violation.”

The amount of the fine, $119,361, is large by DEQ standards, Christensen said. The agency does not have much experience with similar violations, she said, explaining this is the first time she has dealt with a medical waste violation in her 14 years with the department.

This is the first time the hospital has been cited for improper disposal of medical waste.

State laws require the hospital be cited twice for each of the 17 times infectious waste was sent to the landfill. The violations are for both improper disposal and improper handling of the waste. The hospital can either appeal the decision or pay the fine.

Todd Sprague, spokesman for Cascade Healthcare Community, said the hospital is already taking steps to correct the problem. He said he does not know why problems have continued to occur with the most recent violation taking place Jan. 25.

The hospital was first made aware of the problem in late October when the drive system of a landfill bulldozer became jammed with bloody medical tubing. Landfill employees contacted the hospital to remove the tubing and the two parties began working on solutions to the improper disposal.

Sprague said employees are inspecting each bag of regular garbage before it goes to the landfill. The hospital has switched to clear plastic bags to make it easier to spot medical waste, is conducting trainings for employees and has increased the number of red biohazard bags available in the hospital.

The red bags are sent to a company in Morton, Wash., that heats the waste to kill any potentially infectious agents before dumping it in a landfill. The red bags are supposed to be kept separate from regular garbage, as the Deschutes County Landfill does not have a permit allowing it to deal with untreated infectious waste.

Because medical waste could contain blood-borne pathogens, it poses a health risk to landfill employees. Christensen said the DEQ and the county have done everything possible to protect the health of landfill employees as they continue to deal with the hospital situation.

Deschutes County Landfill employees have been regularly checking garbage loads from St. Charles since the violations were first noticed in October. Christensen said those inspections will continue three days a week for at least the next few months, and the agency could leverage more fines if more medical waste is found.

The hospital has 20 days to respond to the violation notice from the DEQ.

”We haven’t determined yet whether we’ll be appealing the fine,” Sprague said.

Over the summer, Sprague said, the hospital discussed accurate disposal of biohazard waste with employees in part because too much regular garbage was ending up in the red bags.

”I don’t think that action has anything to do with this issue,” Sprague said. ”There is a financial implication of it that it costs more to dispose of biohazard waste than regular garbage. That wasn’t the intention of it. The intention of the training was to do it correctly, and a secondary benefit would have been to reduce costs.”