With water restrictions on in earnest for the Corporate Area, chief public health inspector for Kingston and St Andrew Grayson Hutchinson says officers are maintaining their vigilance in monitoring vendors and food establishments while carrying out their other duties and responsibilities.

Since earlier this year, nightly water restrictions and scheduled supply cuts have been implemented for several vulnerable Corporate Area communities with prohibition orders looming effective August 10 if drought conditions worsen. Up to last week, projections from the Meteorological Service of Jamaica showed prolonged dry conditions stretching into October this year. According to principal director of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica Evan Thompson, as at the end of June the parishes of St Elizabeth, St James, St Ann, and St Mary “were determined to be experiencing drought conditions” while the parishes of Manchester and St Catherine “were both basically on the borderline, in that they were just about moving toward drought conditions”.

Speaking with the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday, Hutchinson said health inspectors will not relax their stance.

“We continue to do our monitoring of vendors, fast food establishments, and food establishments on a whole, to ensure that all the requirements are being met, even though there is that restriction and even though there is drought at present, those persons operating food and establishments are required to ensure that they have adequate amounts of water to satisfy their needs and to ensure that cleaning and sanitisation is done, and to continue to ensure that the risk of food-borne illnesses to customers is significantly reduced. Our stance will not change,” Hutchinson said.

“Our duties remain the same; to ensure that all facilities meet the requirements in terms of adequacy of water, in terms of the use of water for cleaning and sanitisation of equipment, of utensils, tools, implements, all the facilities that are used in their operations. So there is no change in our approach,” Hutchinson said, adding that food handling establishments should have sufficient contingency or backup storage of water, despite the water restrictions, to continue to carry on their activities.

“For vendors, we expect that they will also have their jars or containers with water to ensure that hand washing is carried out, and that they treat water that they are going to use for drinking, if necessary, or purchase bottled water. But our stance has not changed as it relates to our duties and responsibilities,” he said further.

Additionally Hutchinson said while the department continues to operate with less than the optimum number of personnel, “if complaints are received” from the general public, the level of surveillance will be amplified.

“We would certainly increase our level of monitoring, increase our frequency, but at the moment we don’t think that there is great need, but Kingston and Saint Andrew is the only twin parish in the island of Jamaica, so we have the largest number of public health inspectors, and our cadre is really the largest number at present but we are not at our quota,” Hutchinson said.

He, however, noted that the only complaint received so far is from individuals dissatisfied with the water restrictions.

“They would like the regulation to change. In other words, they don’t want any restrictions. But we are all cognisant of the need that we have water to supply our needs. But it’s human nature, we all want to ensure that we have regular flow,” he told the Observer.

Meanwhile, Jamaica Association of Public Health Inspectors Vice-President Paul Ximines urged individuals who have concerns about specific establishments to report to the health department in their parish.

“Some parishes have health centres where inspectors are assigned so they can go there and make a complaint as well. Even if we ask your names and so forth when we are doing our investigations, we do so with absolute secrecy. We don’t want persons to be afraid to give us information thinking we are going to [disclose their identity],” he said.

“Our concern is the issues that exist and not passing on information not meant for others. So we want persons to rest assured that when they do lodge their complaints we treat that with the absolute respect and decency it deserves, and our concern is to ensure that any risk to the public is minimised or eliminated,” Ximines assured.