AGY-4593 | Sanitary Branch (c.1897-c.1954) / Health Inspection Branch (c.1954-later1980) [Department of Public Health]

Full description

The Health Inspection Branch was known as the Sanitary Branch until circa 1954 and had its origins in the appointment of the Government Sanitary Inspector on 28 December 1896.(1) The Inspector was on the staff of the Board of Health within the Colonial Treasurer’s Department until 1904 and was required to deal with complaints and inspections under a number of Acts, but mainly the Public Health and associated Acts as the latter were later proclaimed.(2) From 1904, the Sanitary Inspector was responsible to the Chief Medical Officer within the Colonial Secretary’s Department. Although according to the New South Wales Public Service Lists, the Sanitary staff do not appear to have been part of an official Sanitary Branch of the Department of Public Health until at least 1924, the start date of the agency has been taken from the appointment of the Sanitary Inspector because the function commenced at that time.(3)

The Public Health Act of 1896 designated municipal bodies as local health authorities overseen by the Board of Health. In the years before the establishment of the Department of Health in 1904, Sanitary Inspectors were responsible for investigating important, urgent or complicated complaints not dealt with by local authorities, or complaints directed at local authorities. This included the disposal of nightsoil, garbage, and slop-waters; pollution of water-ways by noxious trades; inspecting buildings to ensure they were kept in a sanitary condition; and inspecting unhealthy building land to prevent structures being built on inappropriate land.(4)

Throughout the early 1900s, there continued to be a central cadre of health inspectors under a Chief Health Inspector servicing and advising the Metropolitan Medical Officer of Health and the Director-General of Public Health or his deputy, and a smaller number of Inspectors in each Health District determined by the population density of the District.(5)

The Chief Health Inspectors between 1888 and 1969 were: P.A.E.L. Getting (1888–1913), E.A. Cresswick (1913-1933), T.A.W. Curry (1933-1935), G. Garrow (1935-1952), K.R. Home (1952-1963), D.H. Way (1963-1965), H.K. Evans (1965-1969).(6)

In 1913, the Sanitary Branch consisted of the Chief Sanitary Inspector and two Sanitary Inspectors.(7) Sanitary Inspectors were responsible for the supervision of work carried out by the various municipal, shire, and police local authorities throughout the state. The Local authorities were responsible for maintaining all streets, buildings, and urban areas of all kinds in a clean condition and some employed qualified sanitary inspectors for this purpose. In small settlements, the local police officer was often the sanitary inspector.(8) Reports would be sent to the Health Department and the Department’s Inspectors would make inspections of country towns to ascertain how the various laws relating to health were administered by local authorities and also for the purpose of generally advising and assisting them. The Inspectors would also inspect unhealthy building land and areas engaging in noxious trades.(9)

In 1924, the staff of the Sanitary Branch included the Chief Sanitary Inspector, two Senior Sanitary Inspectors, and four Sanitary Inspectors,(10) Apart from its statutory inspectorial and advisory role, the Health Inspection Branch published pamphlets on infection and sanitation for public and official distribution.

In 1939, the Sanitation Branch inspected different types of buildings to ascertain their sanitary condition, including: shops, hotels, hospitals, schools, public halls and theatres; and also inspected swimming pools, slaughtering premises and abattoirs, camps, showgrounds, cemeteries, sale yards, incinerators, and noxious trades premises.(11)

Between 1953 and 1955, the Sanitary Branch of the Department of Public Health was retitled the Health Inspection Branch.(12) In 1969, the Health Inspection Branch at Central Administration was responsible to the Metropolitan Medical Officer of Health for the work carried out in the metropolitan area.(13)

Throughout the 1970s, the Health Inspection Branch continued to undertake regular inspections of nightsoil and garbage depots in local government areas and if necessary served notice under section 65 of the Public Health Act for garbage nuisance. The Branch also investigated complaints regarding drainage nuisances, inspected public swimming pools and tested pool water, undertook surveys of sanitation and environmental hygiene, reviewed applications for approval of septic tank designs prior to manufacture, and tested and approved polyethylene garbage bags.(14)

Inspectors also investigated packaged sewage treatment plants which produced high quality effluents to meet standards permitting discharge into watercourses or the sea; collected disinfectant samples used by hairdressers to be analysed by the Government Analyst; ascertained the effectiveness of sterilization chemicals in portable toilets; and investigated the treatment of industrial liquid waste using pondage schemes for clarification of drainage. The Branch was also responsible for investigating complaints under the Noxious Trades Act 1902.(15)

In 1971, the Health Inspection Branch was one of the Public Health Services units of the Department of Public Health and consisted of the following staff at head office: Chief Health Inspector, Deputy Chief Health Inspector, twelve Health Inspectors, three trainee Health Inspectors, two Registered Surveyors, one Senior and One Junior Tracer, two Office Assistants, two typists, one Attendant to assist Surveyors, and one Records Clerk. There were also seven Senior and twenty Health Inspectors detached for duty in the various health districts.(16)

In 1973, the Health Inspection Branch was part of the Bureau of Environmental and Special Health Services.(17)
After the establishment of the Health Commission in April 1973, the delivery and administration of health services on a day-to-day basis was decentralised through regional offices of the Commission. This regionalisation resulted in the majority of activities of the Health Inspection Branch being of an advisory or administrative nature apart from the functions of the section dealing with unhealthy building land.(18) In 1983, it would appear the Branch was known as the Health Inspectorate.(19)

Note:
Insufficient information was available to describe this agency more fully. It is being kept under review and more details will be supplied here as soon as they come to hand.

ENDNOTES
1. NSW Public Service Lists (Blue Books) 1898.
2. Cummins, CJ. A History of Medical Administration in NSW 1788 – 1973, 2nd edn, NSW Department of Health, 2003, p188; although Paul Edmond Getting was appointed Sanitary Inspector on 8 December 1896 he does not appear in the Blue Books until 1904.
3. The Sanitary Inspectors are not listed in the Blue Books until 1904 and are listed as staff under the Administration section and are not listed as a Branch until 1924.
4. Report of the Board of Public Health for 1898 (Department of Public Health), p25, in Parliamentary Papers 1900, vol.2, p1147.
5. Cummins, op. cit., p188.
6. ibid., p188.
7. Annual Report of the Director-General of Public Health for the year ended 31 December 1913, in Parliamentary Papers 1914-15, vol.4, p39.
8. ibid., p46.
9. ibid., pp7-8.
10. NSW Public Service Lists (Blue Books) 1924
11. Report of the Director-General of Public Health for 1939, p40, in NSW Parliamentary Papers 1940-41, vol.1, p1000.
12. The branch is listed in the NSW Public Service List of 1953 as the Sanitary Branch and in the 1955 List as the Health Inspection Branch.
13. Annual Report of the Director General of Public Health for 1969, p10, in the Parliamentary Papers 1969-70-71, vol.7.
14. Annual Report of the Director General of Public Health for 1970, pp48-49, in PP 1971-72, vo.4.
15. Annual Report of the Director General of Public Health for 1971, p59, in the Parliamentary Papers 1972-73, vol.4.
16. loc. cit.
17. Report of the Health Commission of NSW for the year ended 30 June 1973, p91, in NSW Parliamentary Papers1973-74, vol.2, p153.
18. Annual Report of the Health Commission of NSW 1976, p20, in the Parliamentary Papers, 1976-77-78, vol.7.
19. Organisational Chart, Department of Health, 1983, p37.