Pit latrines causing fly infestation at Clarevue Psychiatric Hospital

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SOURCE: OBSERVER NEWSCO, Add a fly infestation to the list of problems at the lone mental healthcare facility within the state of Antigua and Barbuda.

When properly built and maintained, pit latrines can decrease the spread of disease by reducing the amount of human faeces in the open environment, but in the case of the Clarevue Psychiatric Hospital they are only attracting clouds of flies, according to senior staffer, Ava Bowen.

Bowen said that the Department of Public Works replaced the two flushing toilets meant for patients at the hospital with pit latrines a few weeks ago.

“They built some toilets with cement, and they fit them over where the [flushing] toilets were, and that has caused a fly infestation for the longest while, and the odour is terrible,” she told Observer.

The flushing toilets were apparently replaced after years of constantly being destroyed by patients at the hospital.

But Bowen said the toilets have no covers, and they are not sealed in a way that allows urine and faeces to be cleaned easily. This is contributing to an “offensive smell” emanating from the bathrooms, and permeating parts of the building.

It is not clear whether the toilets were replaced as a response to complaints by the workers who protested for several weeks earlier this year over unpaid overtime and poor working conditions, including a lack of running water.

When Observer reached out to Julienne Mannix, the Senior Public Health Inspector with responsibility for Clarevue, she said she was not aware of the situation but pledged to investigate the matter.

Public Works Minister Lennox Weston said he would have to speak with his department before commenting.

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9 COMMENTS

  1. I have a very deep concern about this situation at Clarevue Mental Hospital. How the Senior Health Inspector is not aware of the happenings there. Many persons in Antigua have positions of leaderships and do nothing to earn their salaries. They would sit on their fat arses and expect manna to fall into their laps. In 2022,there should not be any pit latrines at Clarevue. That is as filthy as it would get. There are humans in Clarevue,not frigging animals. We would treat animals with more dignity and respect. I did see the filthiness around Antigua when I visited a few weeks back. I could not believe it was my Antigua.

  2. Privy? 😲

    “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.”
    — Hubert Humphrey

  3. Keep one of the Pit Latrine. That’s where King Lyadd Lovell Limpy Joe will retire when Melford done wid he at the polls.

  4. Mercy Lord, how can this situation be happening in this day and age?

    And with the world and his dawg reading this … EMBARRASSING!!!

    What will the government’s response be to help Clarevue out of this unhygienic and unsanitary situation?

  5. It is sad that in this day and age we still have people living in conditions where they still using a ‘Straight Drop’ toilet. I mean I grew up using one. And my father was the first in the neighborhood that built a concrete home with a toilet and bathroom inside the house. We were the envy of the neighborhood. Take now Booby Alley where these conditions exist. And the Prime Minister working to uplift the living standard of his people in his constituency, and you have the UPP candidates telling the people not to move but to stay living in these conditions. This is how you can see that the UPP doesn’t really mean well for the people. I remember watching an interview with one of the persons that got a key to their new temporary home. And the woman said this is the first time she will be taking a shower in her own home. And not somewhere in the yard with buckets of water. And the children were glad that they had their own room to sleep in. All FREE of COST. The PM and Sir Molwyn should address this issue with priority as soon as they are back on the island. The think of it that these conditions existed for all these years and only now come to the fore. It tells you that this government is saddled with all the problems to solve. And solving it they will. Just like the decades old water problem is being solved.

    • Are you for real?
      Heads need to roll.
      The minister has made so many promise to Clearview
      The PM and Blondell should have been Clearview biggest advocate

    • @ From The Sideline:

      “The PM and Sir Molwyn SHOULD address this issue with priority as soon as they are back on the island.”

      I’ll be interested to read YOUR reaction if action isn’t forthcoming from either of them.

      We’ll all look forward to you eventually criticising – AT LAST! – the ABLP’S broken promises.

      I very much doubt it though …

    • @From The Sidelines…as always you are off on another tangent!
      Stick to the fucking issue at hand. The Healthcare facility is presently in a crisis, as it pertains to waste disposal and here you are referencing your family’s upward mobility in life, jealousy, envy and Booby Alley Project.

      I pray that you have a long life! But please don’t become demented and start eating your own shit, because you talk a lot of #DEMENTED_SHIT’

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