UPDATED: City Closes Temporary Clinic At Garbage Truck Garage
Updated 09/13/12 - 1:17 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- City officials have decided to shut down a temporary clinic that had been set up in a garbage truck garage to provide wellness screenings for Streets and Sanitation Department workers.
WBBM Newsradio's Steve Miller first reported that workers were complaining about unsanitary conditions at the clinic that had been set up inside the garage at Ferdinand Street and Tripp Avenue.
Streets and Sanitation employee Marty Zamora had said, when he and his co-workers arrived at the garage this week to find a temporary clinic had been set up, they "thought it was something unreal. I mean, are we seeing this?"
Zamora said he was shocked to see blood being drawn for cholesterol and triglyceride tests inside a garage that "reeked of garbage and decay."
"The floors and walls were all covered in dirt," he said. "Maggots and rats tend to show up at night, so we decided not to take this test."
Zamora took photos - and they do show some oil stains on the garage floor - with the temporary clinic in the background.
"We were appalled, and disgusted, and felt there was no hygiene at all," he said. "Ethiopian camps out there look better than this thing. I've never seen something so bad."
After taking the workers' complaints to city officials, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation said the garage would no longer be used to house a temporary clinic.
"We chose the Streets and Sanitation worksite at Ferdinand and Tripp in an effort to make the wellness screenings convenient for our employees. The equipment and testing tables ... were sterilized," she said. "However, in response to feedback from our employees, we will discontinue the use of this site and will continue to work closely with employees to connect them to alternative screening locations including libraries and park district facilities."
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