Section 117 of Public Health Act CAP 242: Health authorities to prevent or remedy danger to health from unsuitable dwellings
It shall be the duty of every health authority to take all lawful, necessary and reasonably practicable measures for preventing or causing to be prevented or remedied all conditions liable to be injurious or dangerous to health arising from the erection or occupation of unhealthy dwellings or premises, or the erection of dwellings or premises on unhealthy sites or on sites of insufficient extent, or from overcrowding, or from the construction, condition or manner of use of any factory or trade premises, and to take proceedings against any person causing or responsible for the continuance of any such condition.
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- Section 118 - What constitutes nuisance
(1) The following shall be deemed to be nuisances liable to be dealt with in the manner provided in this Part—
(a) any vessel, and any railway carriage or other conveyance, in such a state or...
- Section 119 - Notice to remove nuisance
The medical officer of health, if satisfied of the existence of a nuisance, shall serve a notice on the author of the nuisance or, if he cannot be found, on the occupier or owner of the dwelling or...
- Section 120 - Procedure if owner fails to comply with notice
(1) If the person on whom a notice to remove a nuisance has been served as aforesaid fails to comply with any of the requirements thereof within the time specified, the medical officer of health shall...
- Section 121 - Penalty respecting nuisances
(1) Any person who fails to obey an order to comply with the requirements of the medical officer of health or otherwise to remove the nuisance shall, unless he satisfies the court that he has used all...
- Section 122 - Court may order health authority to execute works in certain cases
Whenever it appears to the satisfaction of the court that the person by whose act or default the nuisance arises, or that the owner or occupier of the premises, is not known or cannot be found, the...
- Section 123 - Examination of premises
The health authority or any of its officers, or the medical officer of health, or any sanitary inspector, or, on the order of a magistrate, any police officer of or above the rank of Inspector, may...
- Section 124 - Demolition of unfit dwellings
(1) Where any such nuisance as is mentioned in section 118 is proved to exist with respect to a dwelling, and the court is satisfied that such dwelling is so dilapidated or so defectively constructed...
- Section 125 - Duty of department as to overcrowding, etc.
It shall be the duty of the Medical Department—
(a) to collect, investigate and consider and publish the facts as to any overcrowding or bad or insufficient housing in the various districts of...
- Section 126 - Rules under Part
The Minister, on the advice of the board, may make rules and may confer powers and impose duties in connexion with the carrying out and enforcement thereof on local authorities, magistrates, owners...
- Section 126A - By-laws as to buildings and sanitation
(1) Every municipal council and every urban and area council may, and shall if so required by the Minister for the time being responsible for local government with the agreement of the Minister, make...
- Section 126B - Power to relax requirements of building by-laws
Where a local authority considers that the operation of any building by-law made by it under section 126A would be unreasonable in relation to any particular case, it may, with the consent of the...
- Section 126C - Passing or rejection of plans and retention of plans, etc.
(1) Where plans of any proposed work are, in accordance with any building by-laws made under section 126A, deposited with a local authority, the local authority shall, subject to any other provisions...
- Section 126D - Power to require removal or alteration of work in certain cases
(1) If any work, to which building by-laws made under section 126A are applicable, contravenes any of those by-laws, the local authority which made them, without prejudice to its right to take...
- Section 127 - Construction and regulation of buildings used for storage of foodstuffs
(1) All warehouses, godowns or buildings of whatever nature used for the storage of foodstuffs shall be constructed of such materials and in such manner as shall in the opinion of the medical officer...
- Section 128 - Prohibition of residing or sleeping in kitchens or food stores
(1) No person shall reside or sleep in any kitchen or room in which foodstuffs are prepared or stored for sale.
(2) If it appears to the medical officer of health that any such kitchen or room is...
- Section 129 - Duty of local authority as to protection of water supplies
It shall be the duty of every local authority to take all lawful, necessary and reasonably practicable measures—
(a) for preventing any pollution dangerous to health of any supply of water which the...
- Section 130 - Rules for protection of water supplies
(1) The Minister, on the advice of the board, may make, and impose on local authorities and others the duty of enforcing, rules in respect of defined areas—
(a) prohibiting bathing in, and...
- Section 131 - Sale of unwholesome food prohibited
(1) No person shall sell or expose for sale or import or bring into any market or have in his possession without reasonable excuse any food for man in a tainted, adulterated, diseased or unwholesome...
- Section 132 - Seizure of unwholesome foods
Any medical officer of health, or other person duly authorized by the health authority in writing, may, at any time between the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., enter any shop or premises used for the sale...
- Section 133 - Penalty respecting unwholesome food
Any person in whose possession there is found any food liable to seizure under section 131 or section 132 shall further be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand...
- Section 134 - Rules for protection of food
The Minister, on the advice of the board, may make rules regarding all or any of the following matters—
(a) the inspection of dairy stock and of animals intended for human consumption, and of...
- Section 135 - Orders for protection of food
The Minister, on the advice of the Board, may make orders—
(a) requiring the medical examination of any person in any premises in which any milk or dairy produce or other article of food intended...
- Section 135A - Powers of certain municipal councils respecting milk, etc.
(1) Every municipal council may with the approval of the Minister make bylaws applicable to its area for all or any of the following purposes—
(a) for regulating, supervising and licensing purveyors...
- Section 136 - Breeding places of mosquitoes to be nuisances
For the purposes of this Act—
(a) all collections of water, sewage, rubbish, refuse, ordure or other fluid or solid substances which permit or facilitate the breeding or multiplication of animal or...
- Section 137 - Yards to be kept free from bottles, whole or broken, etc.
(1) The occupier or owner of any premises shall keep such premises free from all bottles, whole or broken, whether fixed on walls or not, tins, boxes, calabashes, earthenware vessels, shells or any...
- Section 138 - Premises not to be overgrown
No person shall within a township permit any premises or lands owned or occupied by him or over which he has control to become overgrown with bush or long grass of such a nature as, in the opinion of...
- Section 139 - Wells, etc., to be covered
(1) It shall not be lawful for any person to keep, or for the occupier or owner of any premises to allow to be kept thereon, any collection of water in any well, barrel, tub, bucket, tank or other...
- Section 140 - Cesspits to be screened
The occupier or owner of any premises upon or attached to which is any cesspit shall cause such cesspit to be properly protected or screened to the satisfaction of the medical officer of health so as...
- Section 141 - Gutters may be required to be perforated
It shall be lawful for the medical officer of health by written notice to require the occupier or owner of any premises upon or attached to which is any gutter, pipe, groove or waterway used or...
- Section 142 - Larvae, etc., may be destroyed
Where any of the immature stages of the mosquito are found on any premises in any collection of water in any cesspit, well, pool, channel, barrel, tub, bucket, tank or any other vessel, or in any...
- Section 143 - Mere presence of mosquito larvae an offence
Notwithstanding any provision of this Act, the occupier or owner of any house or premises, or the owner or person having the charge of any vessel, timber, cask or other article, in or about which...
- Section 144 - Dead to be buried in appointed cemeteries
(1) It shall be lawful for the Minister to select and appoint and to notify in the Gazette sufficient and proper places to be the sites of and to be used as cemeteries; and it shall be obligatory...
- Section 145 - Authorized cemeteries
All cemeteries now being used as such, and such other cemeteries as may be authorized by the Minister, notice whereof shall be published in the Gazette, shall be deemed authorized cemeteries.
- Section 146 - Permit to exhume
(1) Subject to the provisions of section 147, it shall not be lawful to exhume any body or the remains of any body which may have been interred in any authorized cemetery or in any other cemetery,...
- Section 147 - Exhumation needed for execution of public works may be ordered
(1) It shall be lawful for the Minister, whenever he deems it expedient for the execution of any public work or any public purpose, to remove any body or the remains of any body from any grave whether...
- Section 148 - Record of permits and orders for exhumation
(1) There shall be kept a record of every permit granted and of every order made under section 146 or section 147.
(2) Such record shall contain particulars, so far as the same can be ascertained,...
- Section 149 - Closing of cemeteries
It shall be lawful for the Minister to notify in the Gazette that any cemetery or burial ground shall, from a time in such notification to be specified, be closed, and the same shall be closed...
- Section 150 - Reimbursement of expenses to the board
(1) All reasonable expenses incurred by the board in consequence of any default in complying with any order or notice issued under this Act shall be deemed to be money paid for the use and at the...
- Section 151 - Basements not to be occupied without permission
It shall not be lawful to live in, occupy or use, or to let or sublet, or to suffer or permit to be used, any basement for habitation, nor shall it be lawful, without the written permission of the...
- Section 152 - Regulation of lodging-houses
The Minister, on the advice of the board, may make rules for the conduct and inspection of lodging-houses, and no person shall open, or keep open, a lodging house unless the house is registered and...
- Section 153 - Regulation of nursing homes, etc.
(1) The Minister, on the advice of the board, may make rules for the conduct and inspection of nursing homes convalescent homes, private hospitals, private mental hospitals, maternity homes,...
- Section 154 - Markets
For the purposes of this Act, the Minister may make rules for the establishment, control and closing of all markets and market buildings.
- Section 155 - Board may apply for additional public latrines on unleased public land
When in the opinion of the local authority additional public latrine accommodation is required in any locality upon unleased public land, the local authority shall apply in writing to the Minister,...
- Section 156 - Regulation of public washermen
Every local authority may by public notice prohibit the washing of clothes by washermen in the exercise of their calling except at public wash-houses or at such other places as it may appoint for the...
- Section 157 - Control of irrigated land, and rules for the regulation of standing or running water
(1) Where it is shown to the satisfaction of the Minister, upon the advice of the board, that the growing of any crop or the irrigation of any land being within the boundaries of a township or within...
- Section 158 - Supervision of importation or manufacture of vaccines, etc.
(1) The Minister may provide for the inspection, sampling and examination, by officers of the Medical Department, of vaccines, vaccine lymphs, sera and similar substances imported or manufactured in...
- Section 159 - Notices, etc., may be printed or written
Notices, orders and other documents under this Act may be in writing or print, or partly in writing and partly in print, and if the same require authentication by the board, or a local authority, the...
- Section 160 - Service of notices, etc.
Notices, orders and other documents required or authorized to be served under this Act may be served by delivering the same to or at the residence of the person to whom they are respectively...
- Section 161 - Power and duties of officers of department
The Deputy Director of Medical Services, or any assistant director of medical services, medical officer of health, port health officer or medical officer of the department, may with the authority and...
- Section 162 - Defect in form not to invalidate notices, etc.
No defect in the form of any notice or order made under this Act shall invalidate or render unlawful the administrative action, or be a ground for exception to any legal proceedings, which may be...