Day 111 - 30 Mar 95 - Page 41


     
     1        boning hall were not sterlised properly during the working
     2        day.
     3
     4   Q.   In what way?
     5        A.  That you had sterlisers, a few, I cannot remember how
     6        many, knife sterlisers, small knife sterlisers, next to the
     7        hand wash basins in the boning hall but, usually, the main
     8        sterlisation, and the most important part of the steriliser
     9        in a boning hall is done during the work breaks, whether
    10        they are long breaks or short breaks, all the equipment,
    11        all the metal aprons, all the metal gloves, all the knives
    12        and all the implements that are used in meat, hooks and so
    13        on, are put in a big sterliser where they are left during
    14        the break time.  This is the only way to keep up a fairly
    15        disinfected environment in a boning hall during the working
    16        day.
    17
    18        It is bad practice to have a lot smaller sterlisers next to
    19        wash basins.  The whole practice of boning meat is quite
    20        different from slaughtering.  In a slaughter hall, every
    21        slaughterman has their own little bit that they do.  In
    22        between these bits, they have time to change their knives,
    23        put one knife in a steriliser and take another one out.
    24
    25   Q.   Try to go a bit more slowly.
    26        A.  In the boning hall it is more a continuous type of work
    27        and nobody expects the meat cutters, as they are called, in
    28        the boning hall to be able to sterilise their knives in
    29        between different cuts.  We are dealing with much cleaner
    30        material as well.  But, in the boning hall we are concerned
    31        with a build up of contamination during the day.  That is
    32        why it is very important to have a thorough sterlisation of
    33        implements during the breaks.
    34
    35        This was not happening at Jarretts.  They did not have
    36        equipment for sterlisation.  That was one of the
    37        suggestions that I made which was taken up by the
    38        management and I understood that, just a couple of weeks
    39        after I finished working there, this equipment was
    40        installed in the boning hall.  It is very rarely you find a
    41        boning hall where you would not have this equipment.
    42
    43   Q.   So before we move on to TVCs, and other things like that,
    44        would you say that Jarretts is a well run abattoir?
    45        A.  Well, in my professional opinion, it was not as far as
    46        the hygiene of the operation was concerned.
    47
    48   Q.   What was the effect they were having on what you have said
    49        to be the risks in the raw meat, the risks for public
    50        health, what was the effect, overall effect, that the 
    51        abattoir was having on those risks, or just summarise what 
    52        you feel the health implications are of the way that the 
    53        abattoir was being run?
    54        A.  Well, in my opinion, the lack of the listed, as
    55        I mentioned earlier, hygiene procedures and the problems
    56        related to good practices, they did increase the
    57        possibility of both contamination and growth of bacteria on
    58        the carcasses.  Since we assume, as an Official Veterinary
    59        Surgeon who takes responsibility of all the material that
    60        goes out of that particular plant, I have to work from an

Prev Next Index