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A disease outbreak waiting to happen

Sep 29, 2008 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The male sanitary facility of the M.V. Malali is not only a nuisance, but a definite public health hazard by all standards of public health measurements.

My family and I travelled to Leguan, on September 14, 2008, on the M.V. Malali and sat on the upper passenger deck that overlooks the washrooms. The air was filled with ammonia and decayed filth.

The author of this letter entered the male washroom and it was a horrible scene (the will to urinate was immediately suppressed). A half drum filled with river water was by the door and greeted all the washroom clients. This water, I was told, is intended to be used for hand washing and flushing the toilets and urinals.

The room was poorly lit, and the stench of ammonia was unbearable. There was no running water to flush either the toilets or the stall urinals, much less to wash hands. I could not locate a piece of bar soap, even though liquid soap in a dispenser is recommended. The stall urinals as well as the toilets were dirty – heavily encrusted.

The floor was wet.  An elderly gentleman who was using the urinal informed the author that the situation existed as long as he could remember, and I am sure that is a very long time ago. However, many passengers sat on the long passenger benches nearby, enjoying a television show. They, no doubt, accepted the stench as a normal characteristic of the ambient environment.

At the Leguan steamer stelling, you have to pay G$20 to use their trench latrine. This is a structure that overhangs the Essequibo River and represents a situation that once flourished on the sugar estates. Thanks to the work conducted by early public health inspectors who brought an end to this atrocity. The urine and faecal matter excreted by its clients enjoy a free fall into the river below (there is neither a holding tank nor a connection to a septic tank for the sewage). 

Not too far away, an artesian fisherman was casting his net, and actually caught two fish that were no doubt lured by the faecal matter. This sanitary facility was clean, but no receipt was given for the money that was paid.

This passenger vessel has no potable water for the clients it serves. Is this not a responsibility of the Transport & Harbours Department to its customers?

As a former senior public health inspector with the Government of Guyana, and a current practitioner in Canada, I decided to research the Public Health Ordinance,

C-145: November 1, 1934, and the following are instructive sections:-
Purpose: An ordinance to make provision for promoting the Public Health of the colony (Cooperative Republic of Guyana)

S. 6: it shall be the duty of the Board (Central Board of Health)…
S. 6(b) generally to take all measures as desirable to secure the preparation, effectual carrying out and coordination of measures conductive to public health

S.74. any person who within a quarter of a mile of any dwelling house deposits human excreta or defecates anywhere except in a water-closet or latrine shall be guilty of an offence…

S.77 (b) any street, sink… water-closet so foul or in such a state or so situated as to be a nuisance or injurious to health

S.160. Ordinance shall apply to buildings, vessels, tanks…The provisions of this Ordinance shall apply to every vessel… but nothing in this Ordinance shall extend to any land, building, vessel, tent, van or similar structure belonging to Her Majesty.

Is it that the Transport & Harbours Department are using S.160 of the Public Health Ordinance
et al. to escape their civil responsibility to provide, at a minimum, clean and hygienic sanitary facilities as well as a supply of potable water on the M.V. Malali, and also are permitting individuals to deposit faecal matter within a quarter mile of a dwelling house?  What message does this situation send to the many visitors of the country as well as the local residents? I am totally devastated, and am leaving the rest to those responsible to take action.

Aptie Sookoo

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