What is stinking ?
What does ‘DISASTER Management’ mean to you ?
What does ‘ESSENTIAL Service’ mean to you ?
What does SDMC mean by ‘mitigation’ of the Pandemic ?
Today, and already for the past few days, garbage bins around Kuching had been filled to the brim, with excess garbage being stuffed all around these over-filled bins.
The cause – 17 employees of the Waste Disposal Company, Trienekiens had been tested positive for Covid-19 and are currently undergoing the mandatory 14-day quarantine. Obviously, the shortage of staff had created havoc on the capability of the garbage collection Team.
As posted on Trienekens’ homepage – ‘Further to the first reported case on 1 June 2021, several more positive cases were reported causing further disruptions to waste collection services.
To plan ahead, the company had taken it upon themselves to carry out a swab testing exercise for the whole Municipal Waste collection team.
A total of 17 employees from the company’s Kuching Logistics & Services Division have tested positive for COVID-19 while more than 60 are under quarantine orders, equalling 40% of the company’s workforce.’
The first incident occurred in early June when a Covid-19 positive case was detected among one of the staff.
Notwithstanding the explanations, why were PROACTIVE measures not put in place to give priority for these employees to be vaccinated first – knowing very well that Garbage Collection within the community will be disrupted should any of these employees be infected and tested positive ?
Isn’t disaster management premised on ‘being prepared for the worst but hoping for the best’ ? What happenend, Trienekens ?
After taking over waste collection from the respective local councils, we would expect a more professional approach over the ‘civil servant’s more bureaucratic approach. In short, we expect much BETTER !
Often in risk management, we need a major event to wake us up and to get our house in order. This arises from a common human trait of not adequately assessing or managing risk until it happens to us. Heard that ?
It is better to look at effective proactive management methods for controlling disaster and emergencies as well as practising proactive, preventive risk management rather than reactive ‘firefighting’ risk management.
On that, it can be said that the ‘happenings’, at Trieneken, though unfortunate, were ‘foreseeable’, if not preventable, wasn’t they? If only more proactive responses were taken into consideration. What happened appeared more reactive then proactive.
An extended period of non-collection of garbage can also pose potential health hazards to the public.
Besides being unsightly, it can also attract flies, rats and be a fertile breeding ground for bacteria. With the rabies outbreak still on-going, stray dogs may soon be appearing to help themselves to the leftovers. This may sound a little speculative but then, there’s still a possibility of such things happening, for ‘without smoke, there will be no fire.’
All said, these unfortunate things did not happen by accident. The lackadaisical approach in nipping potential problems in the bud seem to turn them into real problems. Maybe ‘incompetence’ is the more appropriate description.
It is high time to get all these ‘front-liners’ vaccinated and the government is duty-bound to protect other unwary members of the public who may come into contact with asymptomatic carriers among them.
While it may sound extreme, a military-like approach should be adopted during this Pandemic. If it isn’t a war, what is it?
On that, SDMC has to think outside the box on how best to bring down the number of positive cases.
However, it does bring ‘prevention is better than cure into focus in that if we were practising good preventive risk management, we should be ready for incidents that may arise.
Vaccination is obviously the priority and best approach to bring down the number of infections.
Otherwise, the efforts and sacrifices may be in vain as we are as good as doing piece-meal fire-fighting and diverting precious resources to putting out endless bushfires.
That may backfire and lead to exhaustion, if not more frustration.
All because of sheer incompetence. We have enough of it.
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