Dire shortage in Bay of health inspectors

Every health inspector in Nelson Mandela Bay is doing the work of four.

Staff shortages mean that inspectors – or environmental health practitioners, as they are officially known – are not able to keep track of all food-handling premises, hospitals and clinics in Nelson Mandela Bay.

This was revealed in the national health department’s audit of environmental health norms and standards audit in the Bay.

The city scored an overall 180 out of 244 (74%) when it was assessed on client rights, operational management, facilities and infrastructure, leadership, water quality monitoring and law enforcement.

In 2016, the city obtained an overall score of 57%.

The audit found that the city employs only 34 environmental health practitioners when it needs about 94 more for its population of about 1.2million residents.

The October audit followed the city’s intermittent “food safety blitz operations” which have uncovered some of the dirtiest eateries and retail stores in the Bay.

Some retailers were forced to pay thousands of rands in penalty fees when rat droppings were found in the shops.

The project earned the city the national award for the best environmental health project.

Environmental health assis tant director Daniel Nkuna wrote that the municipality did not perform well on staffing due to budget constraints.

“The national environmental health policy states that [one] inspector should service a population of 10,000.

“The municipality needs to plan to fill all 94 inspector positions within the term of the current administration,” Nkuna wrote.

On waste management, the audit found that the city did not frequently inspect waste disposal sites.

“The municipality did not achieve with regards to inspection frequency of waste disposal sites due to shortage of staff.

“The municipality did not finalise its inspection checklist for waste management and hence did not achieve in this element,” he wrote.

In the remedial actions, Nkuna instructed the city to draw up a plan of action by January.

On January 19, acting environmental health director Dr Patrick Nodwele wrote to acting executive director Tsietsi Mokonenyane motivating for additional budget allocation leading up to the adjustments budget process.

Nodwele wrote that the department needed R8.8m to fill vacant positions, R980,000 for special programmes, R2.1m for the surveillance of diseases and health disaster preparedness, R650,000 for management of overgrown vacant plots, R1.2m for computers and equipment, R700,000 for staff cellphones and R450,000 for training.

‘The municipality needs to plan to fill all 94 inspector positions’ Daniel Nkuna

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ASSISTANT DIRECTOR