PORT ANTONIO, Portland – Saying a disgruntled Portland resident held a machete to the head of a public health inspector on vector control duties, the parish’s Chief Environmental Health Officer Lorenzo Hume has appealed to councillors to educate residents in their divisions on the role of public health employees.

“He was physically injured and traumatised,” Hume told Thursday’s monthly meeting of the Portland Municipal Corporation, adding that two other public health inspectors who witnessed the incident were also traumatised.

“We had to send them home and we are still monitoring them,” said Hume.

He said his team member, who fell, suffered multiple bruises to his body. The incident, which was reported to the police, allegedly took place near the Rio Grande Bridge. The alleged attacker is said to be a resident of the New Road Wydah community in the St Margaret’s Bay area.

Hume explained what led up to the alleged attack.

“The team members went in to warn this disgruntled member [of the community] who was not satisfied with the previous intervention and [he] took it upon himself to threaten the team members — and went further. The team member, having identified that his life was in danger because of threatening remarks from the community member… decided to leave.

In leaving, he recognised the community member who had warned him, and [he] started running. Unfortunately, he fell and the gentleman held a machete at his head,” said Hume.

“Knowing that, the team members — the three of them on the location — they were traumatised. When working in this difficult environment, we must understand that our role is the protection of the community and we expect that the community should also be understanding that,” he told councillors.

He stressed that there are channels available to residents who are dissatisfied with the work being done by members of the public health team, including making a report to the human resource department at the Port Antonio Health Centre.

According to Hume, the incident is particularly concerning as the majority of his team members are women; only six of Portland’s 25 public health inspectors are men.

“In the vector team, there is a significant number that are women and they are concerned about how they can work in communities to protect them when these things are happening,” said Hume.

“It is our responsibility to work with them. What we are urging is that in your communities, representative and proxy, have conversations with [residents]. Let them know that if they have any problem with our team members, there is a way to address it. Kindly go to the customer service in our facilities. There are customer service officers who are in all the main facilities: Manchioneal, Fair Prospect, and Port Antonio,” he added in his appeal to councillors.