Day 111 - 30 Mar 95 - Page 25
1 surgeon, and so on, they enter the slaughterhouse through
2 here. They usually enter from outside because their rest
3 rooms and their changing rooms are outside this building in
4 a temporary building which is non-statutory but has been
5 accepted at the Jarretts. So they enter this building and
6 there is no washing facilities whatsoever.
7
8 Q. What do you mean by "non-statutory"?
9 A. Basically, the changing room should be within the same
10 building so the people do not need to pass through outside
11 air and outside ground to get into the slaughter hall when
12 they have changed into their working clothes. This is very
13 common. I must admit this is a very common practice within
14 the industry that as the ------
15
16 Q. Whether it is common practice or not, does it have
17 implications for cross-contamination?
18 A. Yes, of course it has. That is why it is in the
19 statute. You are obviously picking up contamination from
20 the outside air and from the ground outside. If you enter
21 in your boots, you enter the slaughterhouse -- every
22 abattoir I have seen during my professional life has
23 usually some sort of facility for washing the boots as you
24 enter the slaughter hall.
25
26 Most abattoirs have a facility that forces anybody entering
27 the slaughter hall to wash their footwear, whatever it is,
28 as they enter.
29
30 Q. Did Jarretts have that?
31 A. They had no facility whatsoever. I discussed it with
32 Jarretts and they suggested that the price was so high that
33 it was prohibitive to installing this sort of machine.
34 They were referring to very expensive equipment where you
35 put your boot in and you push a button and the brushes
36 brush your boots. I suggested a simple hosepipe with a
37 car-cleaning brush at the end of it just to wipe some sort
38 of possibility for cleaning your feet, so that I could
39 enforce, I could then start supervising, of enforcing the
40 necessity of cleaning your feet as you enter the
41 slaughterhouse. It was impossible for me to do as long as
42 there were no facilities for cleaning your feet as you
43 understand.
44
45 Q. What did they say about this hosepipe pipe and brush?
46 A. Mr. Jarrett suggested to me that I was not -- well,
47 that my experience of slaughtermen was obviously very
48 lacking since I did not understand that that brush would be
49 stolen within 24 hours. He even asked me to look outside
50 at the car park and to count how many cars there were, how
51 many people would be wanting that particular brush.
52
53 Q. Anyway, the reality was there was no cleaning of footwear?
54 A. That would be my first concern, yes, that that were a
55 poor separate -- at this point, you have to take into
56 account that there are people who enter the slaughterhouse
57 regularly. There are breaks. I cannot remember the amount
58 of workers who worked within the slaughter hall and the
59 boning hall at Jarretts, but there is considerable traffic
60 in and out of the slaughter hall. That would be my first
