{"id":2137,"date":"2019-02-06T18:16:15","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T18:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2137"},"modified":"2019-02-06T18:16:19","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T18:16:19","slug":"nswma-public-health-talk-tough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2137","title":{"rendered":"NSWMA, Public Health talk tough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Clinton Pickering<\/em><\/strong> – Freelance Writer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business\nestablishments, in particular restaurants in Montego Bay are being warned to\nabide by the public health laws to avoid rat infestation, or face the courts\nand possibly lose their operating permits.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past two years, the St James Public Health\nDepartment has been on a relentless drive against rat infestation in the city,\nbut the level of cooperation is less than desired. It has now reached the stage\nwhere restaurant operators will have to face both the health department and the\nNational Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) as they lay down the\ngauntlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NSWMA Regional Director, Garnet Edmondson, disclosed that\n\u201cIn two weeks\u2019 time, we\u2019re going to be sitting down with our restaurant\n(operators) in Montego Bay to speak with them about this rat infestation and\nhow they manage their garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, Chief Public Health Inspector, Lennox Wallace, says, \u201cI\nprefer dialogue before bringing down the law because a lot of problems can be\nsolved outside of courts.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The soft approach was taken last week when the NSWMA\nencountered a serious garbage problem at the Montego Bay Transport Centre.\nDuring collection at the transport centre on Monday, January 28, the NSWMA\nobserved that it had been overrun with rodents and contacted the public health\nchief. On visiting the following day, Mr. Wallace met with representatives of\nthe lessee and following discussion, notice was served for a rodent control\nprogramme to be initiated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The health department stipulated that \u201ca pest controller\nmust be hired by them to effect remedial measures.\u201d Three truckloads of garbage\nwere removed from the facility subsequently. \u201cIt\u2019s safe to say that the\nproperty has been brought to minimum public health standards,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Wallace said having gone there himself last Friday, he\nwas satisfied that it had been thoroughly cleaned and up to yesterday, he was\nsigning applications for the renewal of licenses for the 14 vendors operating\nin the transport centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PEOPLE\u2019S ARCADE\nDILEMMA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But while the transport centre now has a clean bill of\nhealth, the adjoining People\u2019s Arcade complex continues to be of major concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhereas the lessee (at the transport centre) would have\nbrought back his property to public health standards, my concern goes to the\nPeople\u2019s Arcade that we have been having problems over the years with,\u201d said\nthe public health chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shops were built by the St James Parish Council but the\nland is owned by the Jamaica Railway Corporation, which has been making failed\nattempts to recover its property for several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Wallace recalled that last year, \u201ccertain agreements\nwere made with them and to date, they have just partially solved some of the\nproblems,\u201d he noted. One such problem being that the bathroom facility has been\ntaken over and turned into a beauty studio<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gravity of this problem is that, \u201cright now, 95 percent\nof that facility is now domestic\u201d, with what was intended to be shops operated\nby persons taken off the streets of the city, converted into a beehive of\nliving quarters in which children are being raised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, he said, \u201cWe\u2019re calling on the Railway Corporation to\nlet good sense prevail because my responsibility is to the public of St James\nand if it is that goodwill can\u2019t speak to them to say control their property,\nwe have absolutely no other recourse than to take the matter to court, and\nwe\u2019re prepared to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guardian of the public health status of St James\nunderlined that, \u201cThe health department does not have the money to facilitate a\nprogramme for private facilities; people must manage; where moral suasion\ncannot work, we will use the laws.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the rodent eradication programme, initiated in\n2017, has entered a third phase as rats have been detected in the area of Dr\nJimmy Cliff Boulevard along the Hip Strip \u201cwhere at 1:00 o\u2019clock in the day,\nyou can see rats running up and down, which shows you that we have a high\nincidence there because rodents are normally nocturnal animals,\u201d said Mr.\nWallace.\n\nA request has been made to the Tourism\nEnhancement Fund for further assistance and this morning, a programme costing\n$7.2 million will be presented to the chairman.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The guardian of the public health status of St James underlined that, \u201cThe health department does not have the money to facilitate a programme for private facilities; people must manage; where moral suasion cannot work, we will use the laws.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1122,1121,151,100,1123,30],"class_list":["post-2137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-disposal","tag-garbage","tag-jamaica-railway-corporation","tag-peoples-arcade","tag-st-james-parish-council","tag-western-jamaica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2139,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions\/2139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}