‘We still put raw sewage in the Russel and rubbish in a hole’

Tuesday 23rd December 2008, 2:29PM GMT.

RETIRING director of public health Dr David Jeffs has spoken out against the lack of progress on sewage and refuse disposal – issues with health implications.

‘When I first arrived in 1994 we had the waste strategy assessment,’ he said.

‘Now, 15 years later, we are still putting our rubbish in a hole in the ground and our sewage into the Little Russel.’

Dr Jeffs (pictured), who helped bring health statistics into the public domain, is being succeeded by Dr Stephen Bridgman at the beginning of January.

‘I think my big contribution is that we’ve had measurement of health information at the forefront of what we are trying to do,’ said Dr Jeffs.

‘We had a lot of statistics but nobody really understood them or made use of them. We can now see heart disease and suicide statistics.’