Health Dept calls to raise sanitary standards at foreign run stores

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The American Samoa Department of Health, Environmental Health Services is calling on local sponsors and partners of foreign workers in the territory “to raise the sanitary standards” of their businesses.

Head of the EHS Division, Aileen Solaita has been raising this concern.

A recent statement issued by the EHS called for sponsors and partners of such businesses in American Samoa to assist the DoH.

“Please help your people out,” the statement said. 

“A lot of times, when we get to the site, all of a sudden, owners, managers and employees do not understand English nor Samoan. However, when the CLOSED sign is placed, we would get calls from sponsors, landlords, and partners in the corporations questioning our call right away — when you have not helped to maintain your businesses. 

“Help us, so we can raise sanitary standards to protect our people, who are purchasing food, clothes, merchandise, etc.”

The EHS also informed members of the public who want to lodge complaints against businesses “affecting a person's health” to please bear with them.

“Due to shortage of staff during this busiest time of the year,” they say their response is a bit delayed. 

“However, we ask that you have the following information available when calling in or when messaging our office:

Caller's name and phone number;

Name & location of where incident happened;

Nature/ details of complaint;

Evidence or proof, such as receipt of item purchased and item on hand, etc; and,

Dates of incident, and other information relating to your complaint.”

The EHS also calls on members of the public to “check any beverage tops before you, your child or family member consumes them. 

Anything that doesn't look right nor clean on the surfaces of your can or bottled juice or water, DO NOT DRINK, DO NOT PURCHASE.

“However,  RETURN and/or REPORT,” EHS states.

The EHS said they recently received a complaint about a bottle of juice with a weird taste and found some items with discoloration and others have dirty build-up inside the plastic cover of the bottled juices, which have an expiration date of 1/18/2023 (Jan 18, 2023).

“However, when juice or beverages are stored in hot temperatures, its shelf life has now been affected. 

“Again to prevent you and your family member from getting sick, better to discard than consuming it.

“All items were seized as these juices surely have been affected by many factors, such as temperature, or from pests accessing the storage area.  BE ALERT.”

Editors’ Note: DoH-EHS named the brand name of the bottled juice or drink of the complaint, but Samoa News has chosen not to use the brand name due to possible legal issues.

Samoa News should further point out that while EHS is noting businesses with foreign partners, locally-owned businesses without foreign partners have also been found to have sanitary issues.

It is possible that businesses with foreign partners are among the majority of businesses currently operating in American Samoa, and as such are more apt to be found with sanitary issues by the EHS.

And this isn’t even mentioning the LBJ cafeteria that was deemed unsanitary in July of last year and the EHS ordered it closed. However, the cafeteria remained open serving doctors and patients and no further action was taken as far as Samoa News could ascertain. ra/ pp