February 2009 - Constituent Society Corner

Association of Supervisors of Public Health Inspectors (Ontario) -ASPHI-O

The Association of Supervisors of Public Health Inspectors (Ontario) is pleased to have contributed its time and energy to the various writing teams that helped shape the new Ontario Public Health Program Standards and Protocols. As a professional body we will continue to exercise creativity and prudence as we focus our efforts at the forefront of the many challenges we face from both a budgetary and programmatic perspective.

As an organization of environmental and public health professionals ASPHI-O continued to participate on a number of working groups with the Association of Local Public Health Agencies (alPHa), Council of Medical Officers of Health (COMOH), and Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors (Ontario Branch) (CIPHI-O) to lobby for mandatory food handler certification, the issue of selling unpasteurized milk, and provided comments on an Memorandum of Understanding Related to Food Safety in Fish, and the Ministry of Environment’s Toxic Reduction Strategy Discussion Paper.

A number of ongoing challenges and opportunities have been identified that will require our attention, including the implementation of the Small Drinking Water System Program, and ongoing issues related to the recruitment and retention of Public Health inspectors, and enhancing our collegial communications as a profession.

ASPHI-O remains a strong voice for our professional body and we look forward to working collaboratively with many other partners involved in environmental/public health issues as we move forward into 2009.