LGUs told to build toilets for mountain barangay folks

THE Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7) has called on local government units to focus on providing toilets to residential areas in mountain barangays.

The call came amid the typhoid cases in Alegria last week where 142 residents in the town’s mountain barangays were affected.

The health department also admitted that the lack of toilets in the municipalties was the principal cause of water contamination.

The open defecation of residences would lead to the contamination of water system with e. coli and salmonella, both which comes from human waste, said DOH-7 environmental sanitation chief Engineer Evangeline Canoneo.

“ Specially on rainy days, the human waste would liquidize and contaminate the water source,” Canoneo told Cebu Daily News in an interview.

She said this was the reason for LGUs to provide the toilets in residential areas in mountain barangays.

She said that the open defecation on the highland areas would make the residents on the lowlands vulnerable to being exposed to contaminated water.

Based on recent data of the DOH-7, Central Visayas has 82 percent toilet coverage, while 76 percent of the households in Cebu province have their own toilets.

In Cebu city, 84 percent of the houses have toilets; Mandaue city has 74 percent and 76 percent for Lapu-Lapu city.

She admitted that some municipalities who accept payment in managing the water system do not provide needed requirements like automatic chlorinators, spring boxes and regular water sampling to assure the safety of the water source.

“Most municipalities manage their own water system, it’s their responsibility to make sure that it is clean,” Canoneo said.

In the Alegria cases, blood samples from patients showed salmonella on their blood stream.

The municipal health officer, Samson dela Pena told Cebu Daily News that they only have two chlorinators for the nine barangays.

Canoneo said the municipalities should assure proper maintenance of the water system, especially with many harmful exposures from animal, agricultural and human activities.

“The people pay money for the water, they (LGU) should also do their jobs right,” she said. /Reporter Candeze R. Mongaya