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City’s environmental inspections to return after more than two decades
As the Georgetown City Council executes outreaches to various communities there has been a resounding call for the return of environmental health officers and inspectors to work in the capital city.
In this regard, eight persons drawn from the Municipality and others interested in public health, last Friday, commenced a one-year training programme as part of the M&CC’s efforts to better tackle public health issues affecting the capital city.
Council was the first organization to start the Environmental health programme in the city more than 30 years ago and it is now looking to re-institute the programme to boost public awareness and enforce public health laws as of 2016.
The eight persons will be employed as Environmental Health Assistants upon completion of the one year exercise which is being facilitated by the Ministry of Health.
The Council said come 2016 it would institute its own Environmental Health Training Programme.
City Hall’s Public Relations Officer, Debra Lewis told this publication that the eight persons will form part of the core staff of the Environmental Sanitation Section of Mayor and City Council Medical Health Officers Department.
This programme has been dormant for more than 20 years which resulted in the department suffering from an acute shortage of staff.
Six of the eight officers training to be City Public Health Inspectors
Once trained, these persons will be responsible for carrying out routine, systematic and scavenger inspections in and around the capital city; including households and business premises.
Their task will be to ensure that all locations are in an environmentally friendly state, such as no overgrowths in yards or no overhanging trees over the roof of premises. Additionally, they will be policing Georgetown to ensure that residents have their requisite refuse receptacles, that each property has the required surface drains, that there are no pit latrines in the city and that animals are not reared in large quantities.
They will also be tasked with ensuring that buildings are structurally sound through regular inspections.
Lewis said, over the years because of a deficit of staff, these areas of concerns have been ignored and residents as well as business owners have been violating public health regulations.
The regulations stipulate that each property must have a refuse receptacle and persons are supposed to ensure that their surroundings are kept in an environmentally friendly manner.
This is so because while some people make efforts to clean their environment, the majority has adopted a culture of ignoring and littering their surroundings, making home for vector life and rodents to multiply, leading to increase in illnesses such as typhoid, malaria, chikungunya etc.
When persons are found in violation, they will be served notices of infringements of the public health ordinance. They will then be allowed 14 days to comply, failing which they will be prosecuted.
Fines and possible jail time are likely as part of efforts to support the green initiative and to make Georgetown environmentally safe as part of efforts to restore the Garden City image.
Meanwhile, the Georgetown Municipality hosted an Environmental Empowerment afternoon for Primary School Students in Georgetown at the Merriman’s Mall. The activities included the showing of two movies. City Hall PRO Lewis said the main focus of the event is to help children to have the right attitude towards contributing to a clean environment at a young age and in the end making the City a better place to live.
Lewis noted that the Council is cognizant that if environmental awareness is raised at an early age there can be a shift in the mindset of the people.
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