Latest update November 21st, 2024 1:00 AM
Authorities ignoring my cries about this health hazard
Dear Editor,
I have been complaining since 2011 about the impact on my health from inhaling smoke on a daily basis but my cries have fallen on deaf ears.
My next door neighbour erected a concrete structure (see photo) to burn the garbage from his 
liquor parlour. Due to the location of this structure I am most affected while he doesn’t have to inhale smoke and yet he is the perpetrator of this daily health hazard. This has affected my life tremendously, on numerous occasions I was forced to seek medical attention for respiratory problems and I have to use various medications for headaches, sore throat and allergies. I had to take days off from my work place and my expenses for tablets and doctor’s visits have further reduced my paltry salary.
I visited and wrote several letters to the NDC (Lusignan), RDC (Region 4) and the Local Government Ministry. Apart from being harassed and mocked by employees from the NDC I was told by an RDC official that if I develop bronchitis or cancer I should seek a cure from the Medex and the general consensus is that I have a problem with my neighbour. What learned officials we have! To complain means to be a bad sport, unfriendly and unneighbourly. I should just accept and forget since life is so cheap and inconsequential in Guyana. I do not burn my garbage because I prefer not to affect my neighbours and I know that it is bad for the environment and our health. I wait for the garbage truck. The regular garbage truck and a private company collect this neighbour’s refuse every week yet that is not enough for him, he cannot store his garbage like the rest of us. I have to be inconvenienced so that he can do his honourable duty of developing the youths with alcohol and vulgar music that degrades women. This is his livelihood and right but I don’t want the rubbish incorporated into my body.
Sir, I am a young person who does not smoke and lives a healthy lifestyle, why should I sacrifice my health and well being so that this man can burn his Styrofoam boxes, plastic items etc? The burning of these items releases many carcinogenic particles into the atmosphere which causes a range of immediate and future health problems. I do not need to be a doctor to know this, there is a wealth of information about air pollution on the internet and I experience some of the effects on a daily basis yet I am being treated like a neurotic hypochondriac!
I am a taxpaying public servant who doesn’t have millions of dollars to seek overseas medical treatment in the event of a serious illness nor can I relocate to an environmentally friendly country where regulations are actually enforced. My health is my most valuable asset, is it so terrible to want to protect it?
N. Deokarran
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