Northumberland County public health officials are taking part in a national awareness campaign, highlighting the work of its inspectors.
Medical Officer of Health for the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit, Dr. Natalie Bocking, says that in a constantly changing environment, Public Health Inspectors are the first line of defence against many different diseases and ailments that can affect people’s health.
“That work includes preventing potential illness and injury. Whether inspecting that food is safe to eat, checking that water is safe to drink and use, ensuring environmental hazards do not pose a health risk, supporting case and contract tracing for different diseases, or educating and enforcing the changing restrictions during COVID-19.
Manager of Health Protection Richard Ovcharovich tells Quinte News, “All the inspections we do are to identify potential issues before they become, you know, issues. Either food borne illness or water-borne illness.”
“So we do inspections. We do our sampling for water, for example. We do our surveillance for West Nile and tick-borne diseases, and that kind of stuff.”
Ovcharovich adds, “Public health has historically been more back-side. It hasn’t been as front and centre as some of the other disciplines in health care like doctors or nurses or lab techs. Things like that. But there’s a lot of work that’s done in the background to protect public health, but generally people don’t have any clue what public health inspectors do and whenever you ask they say, “Ya, they inspect restaurants.”
“Which is true, but it is only one small part of the duties of public health inspector.”
“Bring to the attention of the public all of the different things that public health inspectors do and, more importantly, really highlighting to potential students that are looking for careers, that public health is a great career.”
For the full report from the Haliburton, Kawartha Pine Ridge health unit click below.
