Health inspectors want to close police station

“It is easier through the present law (while it is inadequate) to get a private householder to abate a nuisance than to get a government agency,” said Alexander Ramnath, public health inspector for the San Fernando City Corporation at a meeting with the Commission of Inquiry into the Operations and Delivery of Public Health Services at the Amphitheatre C, Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope.

Ramnath said people going to the magistrates’ courts and hospitals may notice situations that were not right and wonder why no action was taken. He said, “We will go, do a long report, submit it to the head of that respective department and have to wait when they think they can effect the change we want. Why? Because it is difficult for one agency to take another agency — the same Government, to court.”

Ramnath said the PHD could not take the magistracy in San Fernando to court but was trying to get them to adhere to recommendations. “We want to close down a part of the police station in San Fernando but we cannot. You go to the Immigration Department and the unit is not working, the toilet situation needs to be improved.” He said the PHD has to keep begging agencies to comply.

Chief public health inspector with the Port-of-Spain Corporation Sayed Ali described the Public Health Ordinance Chap 12: 4 as “archaic” and said it outlived its usefulness. He said discussion about amendments had been going on since he joined the PHD “years ago.”