Representatives from the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), Environmental Health and Sustainable Development Department (EHS), St. Lucia Campus, recently completed a one-week working visit to Sint Maarten.
The delegation undertook activities related to environmental monitoring and capacity needs assessments in areas including surveys of Water Quality, Food Testing, Air Quality and Chemicals Management.
The CARPHA delegation met with representatives of Collective Preventive Service (CPS), a department in the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour (Ministry VSA), Inspectorate VSA, Ministry Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure, and St. Maarten Laboratory Services (SLS).
The linkage of environmental monitoring data will provide information support for technical interventions and environmental health policies.
The overall outcome is for EHS to develop a program for strengthening the capacity of countries to carry out environmental monitoring.
The intent of the visit was to evaluate needs with respect to regulatory requirements, human resource capacity, information technology capacity, laboratory facilities and financial allocation available for monitoring environmental quality.
The CARPHA delegation described the meetings as informative. Information was also gathered on the roles of Non-Governmental Organizations in environmental monitoring.
Inspectorate Ministry VSA came in for high praise for …”doing a very good job as it relates to current monitoring programs in water quality monitoring and food inspection.”
CARPHA added that the Inspectorate Ministry VSA has the support of thorough well thought-out legislation which enables it to carry out their work effectively.
Sint Maarten is a member of CARPHA.