Councilors want first-responders on needle disposal
Two city councilors are pushing an ordinance that would trip a 911 call every time city crews find a needle on public property, following a recent Herald report about a 7-year-old girl who was pricked by a discarded syringe at a Hyde Park playground and forced to undergo precautionary HIV treatment.
The ordinance proposed by councilors Stephen J. Murphy and Timothy McCarthy, both of Hyde Park, would make emergency personnel in the city – police, fire, and EMS – “responsible for proper disposal of needles, syringes, and lancets found on city streets, parks, playgrounds, and other public spaces and property under the jurisdiction of the city.”
Murphy said he envisions a process where a city cleanup employee who finds a needle cordons off the area until first responders with hazmat training arrive.
“You’re protecting the public by cordoning it off and calling 911 and getting the professionals to deal with it,” Murphy said, referencing the plight of Cadence Epstein, who was pricked when she picked up a needle July 17 during a summer program at Iacono Playground. “No child or no person in Boston should be facing what she’s facing because of lack of protocols.”
But Mayor Martin J. Walsh questioned the need for the ordinance, pointing to the addition of two staffers in the current budget dedicated to needle cleanup as part of the Public Health Commission’s “mobile sharps” collection effort.
“We’re bringing those people on, training them, and they’re going to be picking up needles,” Walsh said. “Unless in the case of emergency, it’s not a good use of time for our EMS or our police or our fire to be picking needles up.”
The ordinance, to be filed this week, also calls on emergency personnel to establish rules and regulations for the safe disposal of needles. Murphy, chairman of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said he’s open to changes to the language.
“I just think to put it in the code, it gives it more teeth than just a mayoral order — it’s in the code permanently and that’s the way it’s going to be from here on in,” Murphy said. “Better safe than sorry.”