Galway Advertiser 2007/2007_03_22/GA_2203_E1_010.pdf 

Extracted text

10 N E W S

www.galwayadvertiser.ie

March 22 2007

Council kept us in dark about water, says former mayor
BY MARY O'CONNOR A city hotelier and chairman of the Galway City Vintners Federation has hit out at the local authorities, alleging they kept the public in the dark for weeks about the risk of the parasite cryptosporidiosis being in the public water supply and claiming they only "came clean" and issued their "Boil Water Notice" when increasing amounts of chlorine failed to eradicate the severe outbreak of diarrhoeal illness which has swept Galway in the past three months. Val Hanley, a former city councillor and Western Health Board member who is the proprietor of the Hanley Oaks Hotel in Rahoon, claims the Health Service Executive West and Galway City and County Councils, had to "hold their hands up in the end". "Surely they knew about this before? I believe people knew and didn't let on," he alleges. "I figure they were treating it [the public water supply] with higher and higher levels of chlorine. I don't believe it [cryptosporidiosis] spouted up in the last week. That's a bit Irish. We were kept in the dark for too long. For it to come to this stage it [the infection] had to be ongoing for weeks. I believe it was kept under wraps in the hope that chlorine would fix it. "They [the local authorities] are saying there are only 44 cases [of cryptosporidiosis]. That is complete and utter rubbish. There could be 1,044! I know lots of people who had it. My wife and I had it. I know others who had it three weeks ago." He claims "high levels of chlorine" were used to treat any risk of infection in the water before the local authorities went public about the stomach illness. "I am blaming the HSE and the local authorities. They have monitors, they would have known long before last week but they tried to treat it with chlorine. Who is letting who down? Is it the local authority? Is it not equipped to clean water? A lot of questions have not been answered. How much chlorine was used in the last month to clean the water? There was a strong smell of chlorine in our taps for a few weeks. You'd even notice it in the shower. I believe the over-usage of chlorine is dangerous to human beings." Mr Hanley is calling for a full investigation into the way the cryptosporidiosis issue was handled by the local authorities. "I'm calling for a full investigation. I think the whole thing was handled badly by the local authorities. The HSE came out with a soft ould line, boil the water. That's was a bit simplistic and flippant." He says businesses are counting the cost of the introduction of the "boiled water notice" and warns if it continues it will "impose serious overheads" on pubs, hotels and restaurants. "There is also the cost to the public's health and to the economy by people deciding not to come to Galway. You can't measure that. We've had cancellations in our hotel. We've had to purchase an awful lot of water. If you have a hotel bedroom you have to put bottled water in it, at an extra cost to us. If business people, hoteliers, etc were right they would not pay their rates. I pay 35,000 a year. You don't expect this to happen." The HSE West revealed there were 48 confirmed cases of cryptosporidiosis since the beginning of the year in Galway and it was awaiting confirmation on other cases. It is understood there are about 70 cases of the illness in the county each year. In response to Val Hanley's comments the HSE West outlined it had been aware of increasing numbers of cryptosporidiosis cases since the end of February, becoming more conscious of these increases in early March. "We have a system of monitoring laboratory confirmed causes of diarrhoeal disease. We usually see a slight increase in cryptosporidium cases in late spring. The number of cases we cite is the number of lab confirmed cases. There are likely to be more in the community, however there are other causes of diarrhoeal illness in the community too (including the winter vomiting bug). "We are conducting other tests to see if there is another source other than water. The HSE has been sharing information with the authorities and the public as it becomes available." Meanwhile a statement from the Galway City Council, Galway County Council and the HSE West outlined that officials from the above authorities met on Tuesday morning. "The group reviewed the water samples taken over the weekend and noted that results has not identified a problem with water quality. [Drinking water is one of the possible transmission routes although testing conducted to date has failed to detect the presence of the parasite, cryptosporidium]. However there has been a slight increase in the numbers of people affected by cryptosporidiosis over the weekend. "Although there is no conclusive evidence to date that the water is the cause of this illness, Galway City Council and Galway County Council continue to strongly advise members of the public in affected areas to boil the water. The water boil notice will remain in place until next week, at the earliest. "The situation is being kept under continuous review. In the meantime the HSE is carrying out further investigations to explore other possible causes."

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