Letter of the Day | Set high standards as public-health inspectors
Published:Monday | October 29, 2018 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
I want to laud Lennox Wallace, chief public health inspector of St James, and his dedicated team for their firm and decisive act in closing down two food-handling entities in the parish for blatant breaches of the Public Health Act. As an ex-public health inspector, I am often bewildered to see wanton infringement of the public health regulations to the detriment of the well-being of the consuming public.
I am fully aware of the difficult circumstances under which the officers operate in modern times given the low salary and general working conditions, resulting in gross understaffing with corresponding demotivation, and the constant haemorrhaging of the few sacrificial lambs left to battle the waters. But I wish to encourage the officers to hold strain and be firmly committed to the noble task as the guardians of the health of the nation.
I, therefore, wish to outline the following strategies which will go a far way in synergising the efforts of the health department. This in an effort to secure and maintain a very high standard of public health compliance among those who provide critical services in ensuring that consumers have safe food, water, air, dwelling, medicine, healthcare, and a salubrious environment in which to function optimally.
Public education must provide the citizenry with the knowledge to take appropriate action in facilitating public participation in identifying, preventing and abating public nuisances. This begins with articulating the vast spectrum of the powers of the Public Health Act in identifying, preventing and abating public nuisances that become the responsibility of each individual.
Therefore, all citizens must be encouraged to exercise their social right to report any public health infringement to the health department without any apprehension.
The public health officers must rise from their obscurity as was the practice in my day. They must be seen carrying out routine inspections of food-handling establishments, such as restaurants, bars, ice cream parlours, supermarkets, public markets, public water supply facilities, and all the new bottled-water suppliers, etc.
They must be vigilant in inspecting barber shops, salons, health spas, hotels and motels, as well as the myriads of itinerant roadside food vendors, to ensure that all operators have a valid food handler's permit; access to potable water supply; sanitary conveniences, sanitisation, to prevent food poisoning and the transmission of communicable diseases from client to client and operator to client.
J.D. WOOD