Gp Capt Narinder Taneja 18 Aerospace Safety F e b r u a r y 2 0 12 INDIAN AIR FORCE
Have you heard of the acronym FFI The most possible answer from across the readers would be yes. The acronym FFI stands for ‘free from infection’. As an Air warrior in charge of a small cafeteria serving tea to an individual section or a large Tech Flt cafeteria in the technical area of a base to the different messes, the word FFI is obviously familiar. Because, month after month and year after year, you will encounter the Medical officer coming on the monthly sanitary round or inspection (whichever way you may look at it) and asking for the FFI chart. The FFI is supposed to have the nominal roll of all food handlers working in an eating establishment. And the monthly record of their inspection by the SHO staff at the SMC. And yet, at least in a sizeable proportion of the eating establishments, the MO / SMO routinely / regularly observes in the sanitary diary that FFI chart not up-to-date. FFI is just one small component of the checklist that the MO is looking at during the sanitary inspection. You go through the sanitary diary of any station across the Armed Forces and you will find common threads across all of them. Pest-o-flash U/S, not installed, Aqua guard and coolers (leaking, U/S, not clean), food containers in the kitchen stores without lids/ kept on the floor/ untidy/ inadequate, meat chopping block not maintained clean with salt on top, food samples inadequate in quantity/ not up to date/ not labeled etc. These are very common yet recurrent and almost ubiquitous observations. The question is : Why do we need a policing authority, so to say, to come every month and ask for the FFI chart when the implications of healthy food handlers are so obvious and known to everyone Why should food containers in a mess be inadequate or why should aqua guards not be repaired urgently/ immediately. Do the answers to these questions have relation with flight safety Though not obvious as a direct relation, the ensuing discussion will make it amply clear how we approach a preventive activity, be it preventive health and preventive medicine or preventive safety on ground or preventive flight safety. Besides the lack of importance given to any preventive activity, there are possibly more yet subtle and complex explanations that can also be put forward and placed in the context of flight safety. Ignorance It is possible that there is a general ignorance about the importance of public health measures among personnel at various levels of the organisation, starting from the Cdr at the base down to the last worker in the chain of individuals practicing public health measures. Inadequate interest in the job It is important that each and every person takes pride in his/ her job, be it the Safaiwala, the cook or the catering clerk in the mess. If we all decided that we would do the job to a high standard of excellence, we will automatically ensure that we are knowledgeable about the job and will play our role in either ensuring public health or in promoting positive health. If the food handling staff are aware that they have a skin infection and how it can cause a bout of food poisoning, they will themselves remain off from food handling duty and not wait for someone else to point that out. Good knowledge, the will to make a change and little extra effort will make a huge impact on public health. This is what preventive health is all about. Similar logic applies to FFI. Rather than taking it only as a medical inspection requirement, if the significance of FFI, of each element of the examination and hygiene of the food handlers is understood by the staff, then the staff will and should take pride in declaring themselves. ‘I am free from infection ‘are you’ (Something on the INDIAN AIR FORCE 2 0 1 2 F e b r u a r y Aerospace Safety 19
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