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Mauritius Times – 70 Years

Clean Air

By B. Ramlallah

The pollution of air is often caused by sugar factories, which emit bagasse soot during the crop season, stone crushers, lime kilns, diesel motor vehicles, and locomotives. In the past, very little care was taken to abate that nuisance. Later, when we exerted pressure, some factories made some efforts, but in vain. What we want is a sustained and studied effort to solve that problem.

We have written to the Director of Medical Services and to the Minister of Health in that connection almost half a dozen times and raised the matter in Council. During our last visit to the UK, we were introduced to Dr. J. S. Carter by Mr. Wm. Voigt of the COI. Dr. Carter is the Officer in Charge of the air pollution problem in the UK. He was very sympathetic to our problems and gave us a lot of literature in connection with air pollution, which we have sent to the Minister of Health.

At the beginning of this year, we wrote to him and requested him to consider the appointment of a committee along the lines advocated by the World Health Organisation to look after air pollution and which will also recommend to him the passing of proper legislation against air pollution. We are pleased that the Minister has appointed a committee with the following terms of reference:

(a) To investigate the nature, causes, and effects of the pollution of air by smoke, grit, dust, and other impurities from factories, stone crushers, and other industrial plants; (b) To advise the Minister on any practical ways and means of preventing air pollution and getting rid of pollution already existing.

The composition of the committee will be as follows:

Chairman: The Deputy Director of Medical Services.

Members: The Director of Agriculture; a representative of the Mauritius Sugar Producers Association; a representative of Societe de Chimistes; the Deputy Director of Public Works; a medical man; a barrister; and a member of the Legislative Council.

The composition of the committee is fairly well balanced and represents to some extent the interests of all sections of the community interested in industry and in public health.

Air pollution by smoke, dust, grit, and mineral substances is a common phenomenon in industrialised countries, especially in the United Kingdom. The harm caused to health and property by these substances is great.

Mr. A. R. Meetham, a British authority on air pollution, writing on the disastrous effects caused by air pollution, said: “Rainwater loses its purity; ash and other solids fall continuously to the ground; the air contains a suspension of fine particles which penetrate indoors, to be deposited on walls, ceilings, curtains, and furniture; our clothing, our skins, and our lungs are contaminated; metals corrode; buildings decay and textiles wear out; vegetation is stunted and blackened; sunlight is lost; germs multiply; our natural resistance to disease is lowered. In a hundred and one ways, the miasma of atmospheric pollution is lowering our vitality and enjoyment of life.”

How much that picture fits the conditions which prevail at Goodlands during the crop season and in other places which are affected by bagasse soot? All European countries which are affected by that problem have long realised its danger, and they are taking rigid and active steps to get rid of that nuisance. The campaign against air pollution is now an international concern.

The World Health Organisation has sponsored a world campaign against atmospheric pollution. An International Committee has been set up recently in Geneva to carry out a world campaign against the growing menace of air pollution. In an interim report published some time ago, the Committee called for a mobilisation of world public opinion through a broad programme of education to inform people of the nature and causes of air pollution, its harmful effects on health, etc. The Committee has proposed that national air pollution councils be set up in every country to supervise all aspects of an anti-air-pollution drive in the nation.

One of the important functions of these Councils would be to advise on the form and scope of special legislation deemed necessary to combat air pollution.

The Government of the UK has already set up a Clean Air Council. The composition of the Council reflects the hope expressed by Government that it would prove a valuable means of securing effective consultations between the Government and the various interests on whose cooperation the success of the clean air policy would depend. But the Government does not only rely on voluntary effort; it has also made air pollution a legal concern. The Clean Air Act, which came into force at the beginning of 1957, has made air pollution a criminal offence.

To enforce that Act, the Staff of the Alkali Works Division, which operates under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, has been considerably increased. Under the Alkali Works Regulation Orders, factories and plants liable to pollute the air are compelled to be registered annually. For example, factories manufacturing sulfate of soda or sulfate of potash, cement, sulphuric, muriatic, and nitric acid, sulfate of ammonia, and works that include iron and steel, copper, aluminium, electricity, gas and coke ceramic, lime, and scores of noxious and offensive gases must be registered. They are inspected regularly to find out whether the provisions of the Alkali, etc., Works Regulations and Clean Air Act are enforced. During the year 1958, 7,142 inspections were made at factories and works, and 1,793 quantitative analyses were made of gases evolved from the process in operation.

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Welfare Work

Back from Europe, we wrote some articles on hospital management in the UK and in Mauritius. Our stay as a patient at St. Stephen’s Hospital provided us with an opportunity to learn something about the inner workings of a hospital.

Our article, “Inside a British Hospital,” which was devoted to that hospital, was widely read by laymen as well as by doctors. The comments on it were quite encouraging indeed.

In order to improve the relations between the public and the hospital staff, we have already suggested that an advisory committee be constituted to advise the Health Ministry on the best way to manage hospitals. Each hospital should have its own committee.

Many kind-hearted people would like to help the patients in and out of hospitals if they were given the opportunity. We have already suggested that an association similar to the National League of Hospital Friends of the UK should be constituted.

We have received some literature about the numerous activities of that great organisation, of which H. M. the Queen is the Patron. The Secretary of the League, Miss O. Williams, in a letter which we reproduce below, sums up the activities of the League:

“Mr. Halton, the Secretary of St. Stephen’s Hospital, Fulham, has shown me the articles you have written both on your visit to an English Hospital and to a British Hospital in Mauritius, in which you mention that you would like to know more about the National League of Hospital Friends.

The National League of Hospital Friends is the representative organisation of local Leagues of Hospital Friends which have been formed to serve the needs of either one particular hospital or a group of hospitals in a particular town or district.

As you will have read, before we had our National Health Service, a very large number of our hospitals were Voluntary Hospitals — hospitals built and maintained by contributions made voluntarily by local people — and when the hospitals were nationalised, it was found that many of the former supporters of the voluntary hospitals were anxious to continue their work and to carry into the new Hospital Service some of the traditions of the old.

I am enclosing a copy of the constitution on which most of the local League of Friends are based, together with a copy of a Memorandum which briefly describes their objects and functions.

Copies of our Reports may be of interest to you, as may be the stencilled copy of a Broadsheet which describes the activities of many of the Leagues — these examples are typical of the work of the ‘League Movement’ as a whole.

There are now affiliated with the National League some 520 local Leagues serving between them approximately 1100 hospitals – between them approximately recruited 760,000 individual ‘friends,’ of whom perhaps some 17,000 are giving some form of personal service to the hospitals and to the patients. Libraries, Canteens, Trolley Shops, Telephone Trolleys, Linen Rooms, Visiting, Car Service, etc., are all forms of voluntary and personal service undertaken by League members.

All kinds of hospitals can benefit from association with a League of Friends — The Great Teaching Hospitals, District Hospitals, the tiny Cottage Hospitals, T.B. Sanatoria, Mental Hospitals, Colonies for the Mentally Defective, and Hospitals and Homes for the Aged and Chronic Sick.

Our affiliated membership does not give a true picture of the extent of the ‘Movement,’ as there are a number of Leagues not affiliated to us, and also in some hospitals, it has not been found necessary to form a League as such because such other voluntary bodies as the Womens’ Voluntary Services, the British Red Cross, and Toc H., etc., are already giving very much the same service as would a League of Friends.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if there is any further information I could give you.”

We hope that some people will take the responsibility of forming an association similar to the UK League. We are confident they will meet with a wide response.      

7th Year – No 302
Friday 10th June, 1960

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