Health Alert! Danger Looms At Owerriman Senior High School

Danger is lurking at Owerriman Senior High Technical School in Domeabra in the Ashanti Region as food is exposed to a stinking environment from an over-used lavatory.

School authorities and students fear a potential epidemic if urgent steps are not taken to address the situation.

This was brought to light when I visited the school few weeks ago on a different assignment.

On arrival at the school at about 11.42 am by then students had gathered in groups discussing one thing or the other.

'This is always the atmosphere when is few minutes to lunch. Students in this way are preparing their minds and stomach,' he told me after I asked.

The congested dining hall

I went standing in front of a congested dining hall as students take their lunch.

About twenty paces to my right stood the about 20- year-old kitchen, roofed but with dwarf walls.

Busy kitchen personnel had started preparing the supper, amid very unfriendly odour from the toilet and just nearby was the urinal.

Houseflies cover the entire area where sheep also graze and drop waste indiscriminately.

Matron of the school, Alberta Benie Solomon tells me the situation is so unbearable that series of complain to authorities have proved futile.

According to her, the position of the kitchen poses some dangerous health threats to the students and stuff which needs immediate attention.

The lavatory

To my left was the lavatory, structure which looked very old and I spotted some little cracks seemingly begging for attention.

It is popularly known as KVIP (Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pit). It is just about ten paces from the dining hall.

The stench is so unbearable one would think it has not been drained for weeks.

Students tell me after visiting it, users must take a bath and change their dress.

In the midst of all these, the school neither has a clinic nor even a dispensary.

Sick students have to travel either to Agogo or Juaso which is between five to eight kilometers from the school to seek medical care.

Headmaster, Nana Kwasi Konadu Yiadom, explains that local authorities have promised to fix the situation that has hit them for years but to no avail.

He adds that the Parents and Teacher association (PTA) meetings are also held in this same stinking dining hall.

''This is because the dining hall is the only spacious venue in the school and PTA meetings are held there and sometimes we have had to end meeting abruptly because of the pungent stench,'' he emotionally told me.