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Deputy Chief Environmental Health Officer (Ag), Ronald Chapman.

Food safety in focus

MOH engaging south coast food handlers

The Ministry of Health is doing all in its power to ensure that public health is protected.

Yesterday, the owners, managers and employees of food businesses on the south coast gathered at the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) Headquarters for a training session aimed at ensuring that proper hygiene practices are maintained in light of the sewage problems being experienced.

“What this session is designed to do is to strengthen and enhance food handling capacities, so that you can deal with the issues at hand, knowing that these are special circumstances under which we operate,” Deputy Chief Environmental Health Officer (Ag), Ronald Chapman told participants of the training, which focused on food safety practices, cleaning and sanitising, and vector control and pest management.

“We have to put measures in place to protect ourselves, our customers; to protect our businesses. And as such, the Ministry of Health has tried to engage as many food handlers as possible…This is just another in one of those efforts in the Ministry’s continuing thrust to ensure that you provide food that is fit for human consumption.”

He stressed the importance of having documentation, such as material safety data sheets always updated and on hand, as it demonstrates due-diligence.

“If someone accuses your establishment of being responsible for them being food poisoned. And if you have to settle the issue – by you having documentation to show that you have been cleaning on a regular basis, that the cleaning was done at the right concentrations, and that someone signed off on the cleaning, or documentation saying your that food was kept at a particular temperature and this was verified by a supervisor – what this does is to demonstrate that person either did not get food poison from your business or if they did get food poison, it wasn’t an act of negligence; it was an accident,” he explained.

Chapman also warned against the incorrect handling of ice. He said this has been an issue, revealing that a lot of people had been food poisoned by ice.

“I have been in restaurants where people take the bag of ice and throw it into the ground. Once you hit the bag into the ground, it bursts and even if it’s not a big burst, it will have a small opening.”

“So, imagine someone just walked through sewage, walk into your kitchen – you take the bag of ice and hit it into the ground and then you put it with the other ice and people use it,” he pointed out.

“Also, we have seen cases where people go into bathrooms and don’t wash their hands and go into the ice machine and put their hands straight into the ice. The ice scoop is supposed to be kept either in the ice with the handle sticking out or outside the ice, in a separate container also with the handle sticking out. We have seen people use plastic cups and not even a cup with a firm plastic cup with a handle, we have seen people use the little plastic disposable cups.”

The Deputy further emphasised the need to clean and sanitise countertops not only at night, but more importantly in the morning.

“Reason being is that if you have pest running around in your kitchens and store rooms at night, they are traversing the floor, walls and then they crawl on your preparation surfaces.

So, it is important that you have your sanitation up to scratch... If you have rodents, that is even worst as they are reservoirs for a number of diseases. The sewage is running into the gutters and rodents live in your gutters, drains and so on and then try to get access your business,” he said.

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