Demand grows for salmonella name-and-shame
Thursday 26th June 2008, 2:29PM BST.
CALLS have been growing for Environmental Health to pinpoint the centre of the salmonella outbreak. The Guernsey Press has taken calls in the last three days from worried islanders asking for details to be published.
All argued that it was in the public interest to know where the outbreak, which led to 18 people requiring treatment after contracting the potentially lethal bacterium, had occurred.
But Environmental Health stood firm yesterday, saying it was confident the outbreak had been contained and it did not believe it to be in the public interest to name the establishment.
The use of raw eggs in mayonnaise has been blamed and people with experience of the incident have now come forward. A 58-year-old man, who would not name the establishment on the record, said his niece had visited the island on the weekend of 14/15 June and contracted the bacterium.
‘She is still not very well now. To come all the way from England and then have that happen is very upsetting. She is not very happy at all.’
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Re the salmonella outbreak – so who are the Environmental Health covering for this time. Approx 15 yrs ago I and 60 others, including children, caught salmonella and we couldn’t find out its origins although E. H.knew. I lost my job because of the illness, and so did another man, I lost 10.lbs in weight and it took me many weeks to be well again. Its about time guilty parties should be named and blamed, and prosecuted. With the outbreak I was ill with, the Guernsey Grapevine named the culprit and this was unofficially confirmed to me. The director of the guilty company was related to a States Member, I was told.
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It is unbelievable in this day and age that this department is still allowed to with hold this information. Given the fact that with any minor public order offence / or driving offence the individual finds pride of place in the paper, with their name and address listed. But that an establishment which breaks the law by using incorrect food supplies simply gets a slap on the wrist. I bet they didn’t refund and monies or pay the costs (which the tax payer did) towards this investigation.
If any deputy is reading this, if you really are trying to improve the “States” imagine, then get this sorted out and the information published.
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One of my family members, who came from the UK for my wedding on June 14th was affected by this and has only just started to feel better now, two weeks later. I find it disgusting that the establishment in question is not to be named and I assume that I would be censored, should I dare to utter the name here. In these times of freedom of information, I would imagine MOST people already unofficially know who the establishment in question is, but for those that aren’t, surely it is in the interests of public safety to let people know, so that they can make an informed choice when choosing where to dine.
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My question is,why has’nt anyone the guts to name the place where they were poisoned?
Donald.
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I have had food poisoning before so know how horrible you can feel when you have it, but I do think we have to remember that most places do not purposely set out to make their customers sick.
Since the source is believed to be contaminated eggs then I for one would not know by looking if my eggs were going to make me ill. All I know if if I cook them properly then the chances of getting sick go down, but that doesn’t stop me eating the left-over cake mix!
Who knows, maybe the company in question wants to put out a formal apology but knows it will just end up in a witch-hunt?
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As someone said above,you can drive a car in Guernsey for 40-50 years without a blemish, forget to put up your parking disc and you are a star in the local press.
If a restaurant or anyone else buys “bad eggs”, then they should have the courage to apologize openly to those affected, and explain how the poisoning happened to all their other customers, honesty in such matters always pays in the end!
Had this happened I would be quite happy to use the establishment again, but if I got the info “whispered in my ear”then I would think again!
Donald
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You’re absolutely right Mr Remfrey. Although I’m very upset that one of my wedding guests got ill, my problem with the establishment isn’t neccessarily that this has happened, things like this do happen, thankfully very occasionally. My problem is that they haven’t had the fortitude to hold their hands up and “There’s been a problem…this is what happened…we’re sorry!” Instead, they’re keeping quiet, hoping it will go away, (which it won’t), and to make matters worse, the Environmental Health are covering for them too. Contrary to their opinion, it IS in the public interest to know when a catering establishment poisons its guests. OBVIOUSLY they didn’t mean to do it, (they wouldn’t have many return visitors if they went around killing them off), but people still have a right to know when a major establishment messes up on such a grand scale.
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It’s not the salmonella incident that is the serious error here, it’s the cover up which makes all the catering establishments in St Peter Port suspect and leaves us wondering whether the kitchen involved still has serious defects.
There’s not a kitchen in the world private or commercial that has never had a case of, at least, minor food poisoning so why does this particular kitchen feel it has to operate under a cloak of secrecy? A public apology at the time might have put this story in the “old history” bin days ago.
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Mr Gallienne, is your guest looking to seek compensation from this “unknown” establishment? I have a friend who was infected, she is considering a claim for damages.
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As someone who visited Guernsey during the salmonella scare, I too am concerned that the name of the establishment was not given.
It is in the public interest that such information be provided.
Interestingly, we were being subject to some heavy selling by the package tour operator to go to the establishement that has been named on the Why Guernsey forum.
I wonder where the health people would stand if someone had contracted salmonella poisioning, after Dr Jeff was aware of the source? Still it doesn’t matter, as the taxapayer would stand the cost – again.
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