final feb cover - Indian Airforce

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