Details

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Category: Central Board of Health

Published: 10 July 2016

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Duties

The Board may make regulations on the following matters:

 Generally, to take all such measures as may be desirable to secure the preparation, effectual carrying out, and co-ordination of measures conductive to Public Health.

1.     The instruction and examination of persons desiring to qualify as Environmental Health Officers and health visitors

2.     The sanitation of the ports of the country, and the care and health of all seamen and other persons belonging to any vessel in the ports, the rivers or creeks of the Country or in the territorial waters thereof

3.     The importation and exportation of dead bodies and of human remains

4.     Mosquito Prevention

a.     The Board may make regulations for the prevention of the breeding or harbouring of mosquitoes

5.     Slaughter Houses

a.     The Board may make regulations with respect to the control and regulations of the sanitation of markets and slaughter houses and in particular with regard to:

             i.            the registration thereof and the cancellation of such registration ;

            ii.            the site mode of construction, ventilation and drainage; the sufficiency and quantity of the water supply; the collection and disposal of refuse and other noxious material; the general cleanliness of the exterior and interior of the building including fittings, and the surroundings thereof and the provision of sufficient water-closets or latrines;

           iii.            dealing with stray animals found therein; and

           iv.            with respect to markets the probation of the sale of fresh meat and such other articles of food as may from time to time be determined and within such specified area as may be determined, by resolution of the Board to be published in the Gazette; and

           v.            With respect to slaughter-houses the feeding and watering of animals brought therein and for preventing cruelty therein; and the transport of animals thereto.

6.     Housing and District Planning

a.     Land laid out for building purposes

b.     The registrar shall not advertise the transport of any land aforesaid, nor shall it be transported, until the owner has deposited the plan as aforesaid and also a certificate signed by the Secretary that the means of access to, and the drainage of each lot have been provided on the plan to the satisfaction of the Board.

c.      No building operation on any land aforesaid shall be commenced by any person until such works as specified in the plan approved as aforesaid shall have been executed by the owner to the satisfaction of the Board by a certificate signed by the secretary.

d.     No Building shall be erected altered or enlarged by any person without the previous approval in writing of the local sanitary authority.

e.      Every person who does or causes or wilfully permits to be done any act in contravention or this section shall be guilty of an offence; and the Magistrate may order any building erected in contravention of this section forthwith to be taken down, and if the owner cannot be found or makes default in the execution of such order the Board may cause to be taken down such buildings, and may recover the expenses incurred in so doing from thereof.

f.       Applicants are required to apply to Secretary of the Central Board of Health requesting permission to subdivide for transport for building purposes.

7.     Procedures for the Handling of Human Remains

a.     Procedures for the Importation/ Exportation of Human Remains 
Upon the application of the Client to the desired funeral home, the Funeral Home would approach the Central Board of Health for Permission to Export/ Import the Human Remains for their client, the under mentioned is a list of the documents/ procedure that must be adhered to:

             i.            an official certificate of the cause of death issued by the local registrar of deaths, or other competent authority of the country where the death occurred:

           ii.            a statement by the person authorized to prepare the remains indicating the manner and method in which the body was prepared and indicating that the coffin contains only the body in question and the necessary clothing and packing;

          iii.            a transit permit stating the surname, other name or names and age of the deceased person issued by the Competent Authority for the place of death or place of the final destination of the body.

b.     The remains of the deceased person shall be:

             i.            Thoroughly washed with an effective disinfectant and all the orifices therefore disinfected and packed with cotton saturated with an effective disinfectant and placed in an impervious coffin; or

           ii.            Wrapped in a sheet saturated with an effected disinfectant and placed in an impervious coffin; or

          iii.            Properly embalmed ( arterial and cavity) and placed in an impervious coffin; or

          iv.            Where the deceased at the time of his death was suffering from quarantinable disease, which would have rendered him liable to isolation in accordance with the Quarantine Ordinance, or any regulations made there under the remains shall be or properly embalmed (Arterial cavity) and placed in an impervious coffin.

           v.            The Quarantine Authority shall be informed as soon as possible after the arrival of the corpse.

8.     What the law says about importation/ exportation of ashes

a.     Transportation of ashes of a cremated corpse
The procedures and rules governing the transportation of human remains regulation No.18 of 1970 under the Public Health Ordinance (chapter 145) which deals with the TRANSPORTATION OF ASHES OF A CREMATED CORPSE. The extracted Regulations and rules are as follows:

             i.            “Section 20C: - Nothing in these regulations shall be deemed to apply to the transportation of the ashes of a cremated corpse ’’.

           ii.            In view of this it is not necessary for the ashes when being transported into this country to be accompanied by a Transit permit, a certificate from the health officer of the port of Embarkation.

        iii.            The same will also be applied to ashes being transported from this country.

        iv.            In view of the above the applicant would be requested to apply in writing for such a letter if desirous of transporting the ashes of decease.

9.     Transportation of a dead body

a.     Every corpse to be cremated shall be transported to the place of creation to the foreshore in a closed coffin made of combustible material and such coffin shall also be completely cremated along with the remains.

10.   Cremation of bodies

a.     Requirements for cremation:

             i.            Completed Application form (Should be done by next of Kin)

            ii.            Two Registration of Deaths ( By two Different Doctors in cases where an Inspection was done)

           iii.            In event there was a Post Mortem ( 1 Registration of death is required)

           iv.            Accompanied by a coroner’s order form (A47)

           v.            In a case whereby the deceased died at home, a police report must be submitted.

11.     Permission to bury of private estates/ property.

a.     This procedure once facilitated in the early 70 ‘s and 80’s has been discontinued and is no longer allowed. All applicants are advised to have their loved ones interred at the nearest cemetery available.

12.    To frame regulations and if necessary, issue orders for the due and effectual enforcement of the duties imposed by this ordinance, and for the general furtherance of sanitation, and generally for carrying the provisions of this ordinance into effect, and, if deemed advisable, to prescribe among other things which it may consider necessary, the times and manner in which any duties mentioned shall be performed.

1.     School hygiene

a.     For the purpose of regulating the sanitation of schools premises the Board may make regulations for: the registration

b.     the cancellation of the regulation of schools; site, locality, extent, and layout of the grounds, position, size and mode of construction of the building and outbuildings; lighting and ventilation of classrooms and the types and sizes of seats and desks; cloak-room, lavatory, water closet and latrine accommodation,

c.      the water supply and generally for the cleanliness and sanitation of the school premises

2.     Hospitals, Mortuaries and Burial of the Dead.

a.     prescribing and regulating the site, mode of construction necessary floor space, cubic area and ventilation, lighting, water supply, refuse disposal, drainage, water closet, latrines, cleansing and disinfecting, storage of food, and generally such matters relating to the sanitation of hospitals and all buildings in any way connected therewith;

b.     Prescribing and regulating the site, mode of construction, floor space, cubic area and ventilation, lighting, water supply drainage, cleansing and disinfecting of mortuaries, and generally for the sanitation thereof and for the conduct and management of the reception into and the removal from such mortuaries of dead bodies.

c.      prescribing and regulating the site, mode of construction sanitary arrangement, and generally for the control and management of the crematoria, cremations and all persons in any manner connected therewith;

d.     prescribing and regulating the manner of laying out cemeteries and burial grounds and the recording thereof distance of graves from one another; size and depth of graves; number of bodies which may be buried in one grave, exhumation, transportation and keeping of dead bodies before burial; keeping of registers of interments; and generally all matters relating to the sanitary maintenance of cemeteries and burial grounds.