Kingston water advisory delayed?
Published:Sunday | September 25, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Tyrone Reid, Enterprise Reporter
A Ministry of Health advisory warning residents and businesses in sections of Jamaica's capital that the water quality was not up to normal standards came more than three weeks after an agency of the ministry first learnt about the concerns.
It is unclear when the supplier of the water - the National Water Commission (NWC) - determined that something was wrong with the commodity it was pumping to the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) as well as to residents and businesses in sections of downtown Kingston and its environs.
Efforts to get a comment from Charles Buchanan, corporate relations manager at the NWC, were unsuccessful, as he did not respond to phone calls and an email sent on Friday.
However, Dr Marion Bullock Ducasse, director of emergency, disaster management and special services in the health ministry, told The Sunday Gleaner that officials at the ministry's head office issued the advisory on the same day - last week Thursday - that they were made aware of the situation by the Kingston and St Andrew Public Health Department.
The advisory urged residents and businesses in downtown Kingston and its environs to make water safe before consumption.
Plenty of time
The senior medical officer of health admitted that three weeks was plenty of time for a lot of people to have faced possible ill effects. "I am aware of that (and) I am suggesting that you contact the National Water Commission for that," said Bullock Ducasse.
Responding to questions posed by The Sunday Gleaner, she pointed out that on August 29 it was reported that there was high turbidity in the water being received at the KPH.
Checks were carried out by public-health inspectors on storage tanks and other sample points on the hospital grounds. Those samples were brought to the lab, but the inspectors also conducted on-the-spot tests for residual chlorine.
"At that time, it was shown that there was no residual chlorine found in the water taken from five different sample points," she explained.
While the lab tests confirmed that there was no residual chlorine in the water at the hospital, no E.coli organism, a bacteria found in stool, was identified in the samples, but because the lab technicians determined that there was potential for organisms to grow they requested a second set to do further culturing.
The resampling exercise was done on September 7. Bullock Ducasse said she would have to speak with the officials at the lab to get the specific reason for the duration of the second round of tests, which established that another form of bacteria - acinetobacter - was present in the water samples.
"The actual information came out of a report that was received from the National Public Health Laboratory indicating that there was a problem with water samples taken on the 20th of September," she said.
Acinetobacter can cause pneumonia and serious blood infections.
Not confined to hospital
Subsequent checks carried out at locations outside of the hospital by public-health inspectors showed that the poor quality water was not confined to the hospital.
Dr Bullock Ducasse said the ministry is to get a report from the NWC early this week which should answer the outstanding questions.
"What we have been advised is that two chlorine pumps at the Montgomery area in Cross Roads became defective and as a result, inadequate levels of chlorine were not entering the system.
The NWC is now adding granular chlorine until the matter is addressed and it can revert to the liquid chlorine it pumps into the system. "Daily sampling and tests are being done and advisories will be issued accordingly," said Dr Bullock Ducasse, who asked affected residents to keep boiling water from the tap until the health ministry gives the all-clear signal.