Kouga Municipality held a “Focus on Food Safety” event and a “Health Day for Municipal Men” this past week
Focus on food safety for World Environmental Health Day
Caterers Solomzi Dayiman (second left) and Martha Nodaka (second right) get their certificates of attendance at the hygiene training organised by Kouga Municipality. With them are the municipality’s Environmental Health Practitioners Noluthando Spengane-Biyana (left) and Darrol Petersen.
Kouga Municipality marked this year’s World Environmental Health Day (WEHD) by training caterers on food hygiene at the Newton Hall in Jeffreys Bay on Wednesday last week. The International Federation of Environmental Health declared 26 September as “World Environmental Health Day”, to be celebrated across the globe every year.
This year’s theme was: “Global Food Safety and Sustainability”.
Community Services Portfolio Councillor Daniel Benson said the main aim of the training was to support the provision of nutritious and safe food, as well as potable water.
“We also wanted to encourage communities to value sustainable food production. We decided to target caterers, mainly because they make and provide food for members of the public at large,” he said.
The caterers were trained on food safety and food-borne illnesses such as listeriosis. They were also trained on the dangers of counterfeit food and personal hygiene. Benson said food safety was increasingly under threat because of various factors, stemming from production and preparation methods.
“There are various food-borne diseases that result from the ingestion of contaminated products. Therefore, health education programmes such as WEHD is a useful measure to ensure that there is proper and safe handling, preparation and storage of food,” he said.
About 30 caterers were trained on the day.
Health day for municipal men
Community Services staff member Nceba Sidenana is screened by Sister Koesie Peens of the Clicks Phamarcy. Senior Occupational Health and Safety Officer Denzil van Vuuren looks on.
Male employees of Kouga Municipality had an opportunity to receive free health screening during a men’s campaign organised by the municipality’s Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) section last week.
The campaign, which took place at the Dan Sandi Hall in Patensie, targeted male employees from all units and sought to encourage men to go for check-ups for early detection of possible illnesses.
Corporate Services Portfolio Councillor Frances Baxter said during a recent survey done by the OHS team, it was detected that male staff members did not make use of health facilities unless they were really sick.
“From a general observation, it may be an issue of stigma and ego that few men make use of clinics for testing. We decided that perhaps if we arrange an all-male health awareness day, more men will come, and we are happy the day was a success. We care about our staff’s well-being and we believe that a healthy employee is a productive one,” she said.
Nurses from the Department of Health and Clicks Pharmacy conducted the screening. Attendees volunteered to be tested for different illnesses, including male-related diseases such as prostate cancer and other silent killers such as cholesterol and diabetes.
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