Group A :Day 3 Kuala Muda

We were to meet at the Meeting Room at 9a.m. this morning where Mr. David, who is head of the Law & Inspectorate Unit, was going to give a talk about “Taklimat Unit Penguatkuasaan” which in direct translation would sound something like “Lecture Unit Make-Strong-Power” (but in actual fact means “Enforcement Unit Lecture”).

When we got there we were surprised to find that Mr. David was already there and eager to meet us all! He seemed more than happy to share his knowledge and experiences with us and at times, seemed really enthusiastic. During this session he taught us about the Enforcement Unit and what is its role in health and society is. Basically, it’s a unit that enforces the law relating to health (much like the police except that the law in this sense is much health-related).

We had a really long Q & A session during-and-in-between lectures as Mr. David was a very resourceful man (and very very very enthusiastic to talk about his unit). So we learnt a lot about the Law & Inspectorate Unit (which we will share in the coming seminars) and what it really does.

We also learnt about food-sampling, inspecting food premises (and the closing down of those that don’t meet up to health standards), control of clean water supply, environmental health, Communicable and Non-Communicable Disease Control, the Vector Unit, and many more, till 1 in the evening.

Well, no point in so much theory if you don’t get to see any of it in action no? So later in the evening we actually got to follow the Non-communicable Disease Control unit around to do some field work.

Our activity was postponed to 5 in the evening so we got time off for a good lunch before having to meet a group of Health Inspectors led by Pn. Farha at Hospital Sultan Abdul Halim. What did we do there? Well, it was interesting. It was out of this world. It was Inspector Work!!!

Among the things that the Non-communicable Disease Control is involved in include “Akta Kawalan Hasil Tembakau” (Tobacco Control Act) in which health inspectors would visit random public sites and catch people who smoke tobacco at places where they aren’t allowed to. Today, we got to follow these health inspectors to do what they do at the hospital’s premises. The health inspector’s job was to walk around the compound and issue fines/summon to those people who are smoking within the hospital compound. Our job was to follow the health inspectors around and help keep a look out for “illegal smokers”.
As mundane as this may sound, it really was a fun and interesting work.

We would walk around while trying not to attract any attention (something like detective undercover work but we didn’t really have to hide behind bushes) and when we see suspicious characters (because they happen to be holding a cigarette stick and a lighter) we would follow them. If they walked out of the hospital’s compound to smoke then it is fine and we’ll just let them be. But if they start lighting their cigarette within the fence then it’s action time! We’ll pounce on them and arrest them at sight… just kidding.

What actually happens is that the health officers would then approach these smokers and issue them a fine/summon while stylishly telling them not to do it again (or at least not in a non-smoking zone). While doing this, they would also ask these men to surrender the cigarette stick they were smoking and put in a tube for collection.

What made this field experience even more interesting was how different every smoker would react to the summons. Most would just give in without a fight and take up the summon (one such case included a 18 year old boy who was under the legal age to smoke), some would plea and plea and plea till they are let off (one such was an old man who was waiting for his brother who was undergoing surgery and needed to smoke. He asked a guard where he could take a smoke and the guard said “hujung sana(at that end)” while pointing out of the hospital but he didn’t realized he meant to say beyond the fence so he took his smoke just metres from the fence. He kept apologizing and spoke about how his brother had been in the operation since 11 and all and was finally let off with a warning), some would fight back with all kinds of reasons (one case of a middle aged man who threatened to write to a local newspaper complaining how the health inspectors never gave a first warning and the fact that there were dust bins with ash trays on it at the parking compound, creating the false impression that this was a smoking zone. He even asked for the number of the head of the Inspectory Unit and spoke to him but he still got the fine/summon in the end eventhough he managed to get an appointment with the health officer. He took pictures of the dust bins before going off), and interesting enough, we even caught a patient who came out of the ward for a smoke (wonder if smoking was what got him in the wards in the first place?). At the end of the 2-hour field work we managed to catch about 10 smokers before retiring for the day. Good Job Group A Inspectors!

Again, we finalized what we learnt on Day3!!

Prepared by jickson