PANAJI
The Directorate of Health Services has moved a proposal before the law department seeking to amend the Goa Public Health Act to help it better tackle malaria, dengue and other diseases fueled by general hygiene and sanitation shortcomings.
The proposed amendment seeks to further strengthen a provision in the Act which was introduced in the 1990s when malaria had become a huge threat to public health in Goa. The provision had empowered the health department to screen all migrant labourers at construction sites and issue them health cards for continuous monitoring.
It had also given powers to health officers to take penal action against labour contractors for poor living conditions at temporary housing provisions made at the construction sites itself.
The amendment to this provision proposed now seeks to extend its jurisdiction beyond construction sites where migrant labour is deployed in large numbers.
A senior DHS official said, the file proposing the amendment has already been moved to the law department which is working on it.
According to the DHS official, currently workers only at construction sites are screened. If the proposed amendment is approved, the health department will have powers in other industrial areas and clusters where migrant labour operates in large numbers.
The amendment will give health officers powers to screen workers in hotels, on trawlers, daily wage earners or anywhere else.
The amendment will also help the health department in routinely taking basic preventive action in situations like the one which panned out at the Cutbona jetty where an outbreak of Cholera last week has already claimed five lives and affected hundreds of fish workers operating on trawlers there.
