‘The Smoke From JFK Is Killing Us’

– Sinkor Community Raises Alarm Over Open Burning of Medical Waste

Less than nine months after it was commissioned with fanfare as a milestone for public health, Liberia’s largest referral hospital is accused of abandoning its new modern incinerator and returning to open burning of hazardous medical waste in the middle of one of Monrovia’s most densely populated neighborhoods.

Residents of 19th Street, Airfield, and Central Sinkor say they have for weeks been forced to live under a thick cloud of acrid, chemical smoke billowing daily from the compound of the John F. Kennedy Medical Center, not from its incinerator stack, but from open pits dug on the ground just meters from homes, businesses and food stalls along Tubman Boulevard.

What they describe is no longer just a nuisance. They say it is a slow-moving public health emergency.

From Promise to Pollution

In October 2025, House Speaker Richard Nagbe Koon officially commissioned and dedicated a brand-new, high-temperature incinerator at JFK Medical Center. The ceremony was hailed by the Ministry of Health and hospital authorities as a turning point for infection prevention and control in Liberia.

The facility, valued at US$31,000 and built from March 2025, was designed to safely destroy the hospital’s most dangerous waste streams – infectious materials, pathological waste, used sharps, expired pharmaceuticals and contaminated plastics – through controlled combustion at 800 to 1,000 degrees Celsius, neutralizing pathogens and preventing toxic emissions.

Residents say that promise has literally gone up in smoke.

“They have abandoned the incinerator. Now they burn everything in the open right where we live. From morning to evening we inhale smoke,” said a mother of three who lives directly behind the hospital fence. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, she added: “My children are coughing nonstop. We cannot even dry our clothes outside. The smell is chemicals, blood, plastic.”

“We Are Getting Sick” – Community Cries Out

During interviews over the weekend, several mothers and elderly residents described sleepless nights, burning eyes, respiratory distress in children, and a stench they say is unmistakably medical.

Madam Yassah Jones, a mother of four, said the situation has become unbearable.

“This thing has affected us seriously. The medical waste is causing us problems, and the hospital management needs to take this seriously because it will cause health problems,” she lamented.

Martha Harris, a mother of two, said the current crisis is part of a long pattern of alleged negligence. She claimed that in the past, hospital staff dumped dead tissue and other waste materials behind the facility’s perimeter fence.

For 66-year-old Joseph Dennis, the fear is for the most vulnerable.

“Both adults and children are suffering from this pollution. Medical waste needs to be taken good care of because these wastes are harmful to humans,” Dennis said. “If the Government of Liberia, the Environmental Protection Agency, and JFK management cannot handle this, we as a community are going to take unspecified action.”

What Our Reporter Saw

When this paper visited the site on Saturday, July 12, residents’ claims were visible and overwhelming.

Less than 50 meters from residential homes and bustling roadside businesses, an open pit was actively burning. The pile contained a dangerous mix of what appeared to be blood-stained gauze and bandages, used surgical gloves, plastic IV bags and fluid bottles, syringes, mixed with kitchen food waste and general garbage.

Heavy black smoke, driven by the afternoon wind, drifted directly into nearby compounds, homes, schools and cook shops. No protective fencing, no warning signs, no hospital personnel in protective equipment were seen at the burning site.

A Clear Violation of Liberia’s Health Laws

Public health experts say the practice, if confirmed, is not just reckless but illegal.

Liberia’s National Guidelines for the Safe Management of Healthcare Waste (2020), developed by the National Public Health Institute of Liberia and the Ministry of Health with technical support from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, strictly prohibits open burning of infectious healthcare waste.

The guidelines mandate strict segregation at source, safe collection and transportation, and destruction only in licensed, high-temperature facilities.

Uncontrolled open burning of medical waste mixed with plastics releases some of the most toxic pollutants known to science, including dioxins and furans – persistent organic pollutants classified as human carcinogens – along with particulate matter, carbon monoxide and acid gases. Beyond air pollution, it exposes waste handlers, children, and the entire community to blood-borne pathogens including HIV, Hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis, and other infectious agents, as well as injury from contaminated sharps.

“This is not just pollution, it is a violation of medical ethics and the law,” said an environmental health official at the Ministry of Health who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the matter. “JFK should be the standard bearer for infection prevention and control for the entire country. If JFK is burning infectious waste in a community, what message does that send to clinics in the counties?”

JFK Medical Center has a long and troubled history with waste management. For years, residents and the Monrovia City Corporation have complained about medical and domestic waste littering streets and sidewalks adjacent to its perimeter fence in Sinkor.

Silence From JFK

When contacted on Friday, July 11, with detailed questions about why the newly dedicated incinerator is not in use, how long it has been non-functional, what caused its abandonment, and what interim measures are being taken to protect the surrounding community, the JFK Medical Center administration did not provide an immediate response up to press time.

That silence has further enraged residents.

“We are calling on Speaker Koon who dedicated this incinerator, and the EPA to come and see what is happening here,” said Mary Dennis, a mother of three. “The hospital that is supposed to save lives is making us sick. They must return to using the controlled, high-temperature facility and stop burning waste among us.”

The community is now demanding immediate intervention from the Ministry of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Monrovia City Corporation to halt the open burning, investigate the status of the US$31,000 incinerator, and compel the hospital to return to safe, controlled disposal.

Until then, Sinkor residents say, they will continue to live with their windows shut, their children coughing, and the daily reminder that the smoke from Liberia’s premier referral hospital is drifting into their homes.