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Thursday, September 4, 2014

ADDRESS BY THE CHAIRMAN OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH OFFICERS REGISTRATION COUNCIL OF NIGERIA (EHORECON), PROF. OLADAPO A. AFOLABI OON, CFR ON THE INAUGURATION CEREMONY OF THE 3RD GOVERNING BOARD OF THE COUNCIL AT ROCKVIEW HOTEL, ABUJA

On behalf of myself and other members of the governing  board of Environmental Health Officers Registration  council of Nigeria, I like to thank the Management and the Honourable Minister of Environment and Mr. President for  finding us worthy to serve on this Board. We express our sincere gratitude which we request the Honourable Minister to convey to Mr. President.

The importance of environmental Health especially in this  era of emerging new diseases cannot be over emphasized  as this cadre of professionals hold the key to the prevention of transmittable and communicable diseases  including the protection of aesthetics of our environment.

Indeed they are responsible for the general health outlook of the nation. It is therefore important that the nation’s health policy and strategy should emphasize preventive health care and this is where the relevance of the environmental health professionals especially the environmental health officers should be written in bold and indelible ink.

This being so, it is clear that environmental health officers are in big deficit. As of today we have only about 13,000 trained and only 8,000 are registered. This is far short of at least 22,000 expected, considering WHO requirement of 1 EHO to 8,000 people. This is what has given room to the employment of unqualified personnel by various governments to do our job, especially States and Local Governments and giving them all sorts of titles such as environmental marshalls, environmental corps etc. Of course garbage in, garbage out. Results of unqualified personnel manning such sensitive professional practices is the cause of the unending epidemic of communicable and transmittable diseases in our communities. This
situation needs to be addressed and corrected.

The council may need to carry out advocacy to state government, to give priority to environmental health
interventions which are known globally to be cheaper and save more money than the present situation of advocating medical based interventions even in areas that obviously
require otherwise.

We also need to pay advocacy visit on the need for tertiary institutions to popularize training in this field by offering degrees and diploma programmes. It is quite unacceptable that in over 100 years that the colonial
administration introduced this profession, only 2 Universities are offering degree programmes for
environmental health officers.

For us to remain relevant and responsible, I once again invite members of this profession to rededicate
themselves and carry on their duties with honour, dignity and integrity. The profession had already made a name for itself and we should keep it up.

We know that our society of today has lost a lot of our value system and some of our members could easily be tempted to engage in unwholesome practices. For this group, hard times await them as the Council will not hesitate to discipline anyone who brings the image of the profession into ridicule.

In conclusion, I wish to state that the task before the Council is enormous and require the dedication of all the members and the full support of government. We pledge our loyalty to the government and commitment to this duty of further improving the profession by continuing from where the last Council stopped.

Thank you.

Dated  11TH AUGUST, 2014

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