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V. ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
The Chief Public Health Inspector reports as follows
HEALTH EDUCATION
“For many years health officers have been battling to impress upon the community
the importance to health of observing basic standards of hygiene where food is
concerned and more generally of conforming to basic principles in everyday hygienic
conduct in their homes businesses and public places.
There has been improvement but it is limited and does not appear to have
registered with average John Citizen despite the aids such as radio television
and the press used by the health officer
Dirty and verminous houses and persons were commonplace, in certain areas,
pre-1939 but to-day there is a marked improvement. To a large degree this can be
attributed to service in the armed forces where persons, male and female. who had
lived in dirty homes experienced for the first time in their lives the comfort of
living under clean conditions and of personal cleanliness Unfortunately it is a far
more difficult task to bring home the importance of hygienic practices in handling
food despite the fact that a not unusual observation from a food poisoning
victim is that "I' ve eaten something"!
Health education in certain respects seems to be something which is not absorbed
by the community generally. Smoking tobacco, and taking drugs have been
established as very serious health hazards at the highest medical level and
abundant publicity has been given but to what effect? There has been little,
if any reduction in smoking tobacco and in some quarters it is thought that
drug taking in a mild form should not be illegal.
The attitude of the public to Health Education is difficult to understand,
all the efforts that have been made appear to have registered with some of the
people yet during the dustmen's strike self appointed experts on public health
arose from all sections of the community overnight which did illustrate the great
importance they attached to public health but revealed that their primary concern
was not public health but an inconvenience to carrying on their livelihood, which
they themselves had prejudiced due to not availing themselves of the emergency
provisions made to dispose of their trade refuse
THE EXHUMATION OF HUMAN REMAINS
In recent years redevelopment has necessitated the disturbance of old burial
grounds and, in accordance with ecclesiastical and statutory law, reinterment must
ensue at an approved place It is a duty of the Public Health Inspector, under
the direction of the Medical Officer of Health to enforce the Regulations by
supervising works and ensuring that excavation and the storage of remains prior
to reinterment, are conducted in the proper manner with due reverence and above
all effectively screened from public view.
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