Lim Garden is listed as a dengue hotspot for week 50 till 13 December 2014 on the website of Perak State Health Department. Rukun Tetangga (RT) Lim Garden and Resident Representative Committee in conjunction with Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh (MBI) organised a gotong royong to clean up the place.
Committee members of RT had identified the areas where garbage is dumped. Since MBI did not collect household garbage on the previous day as scheduled, garbage was placed in the collection sites along the road. Workers from MBI and residents cleared the garbage and due to heavy rain in the morning only about 40 per cent of the rubbish was removed.
Councillor Ong Chee Keng was present and visited the garbage sites. He listened to the problems of the residents which were basically clogged drains, grass cutting, garbage collection. He was also shown the area in front of the houses facing Sungai Pari where buffalos and cows come to graze, destroying trees and plants. The place stinks of cow dung and urine and becomes breeding ground for mosquitos. In spite of repeated complaints, no action has been taken by MBI.
Most residents in Lim Garden are pensioners and there are a number of professionals but only about 30 residents turned up. Senior citizens may not be able to do physical work, but they could have turned up to give moral support.
It has been identified in a survey that individual and communal septic tanks have a serious problem of mosquito breeding. The solution to reduce mosquito breeding and prevent dengue is to build a Centralised Sewage System and this has been highlighted. Until CSS is built, there is a constant danger of dengue outbreak in Lim Garden.
AJ
