Don't eat if the toilet is dirty

I refer to an article in the Today newspaper "Check out the toilets before you choose place to have a meal". According to the article, we should check to cleanliness of the toilets in the hawker center before deciding what to eat. Some toilets in Singapore do not even have basic necessities like toilet paper or hand-washing soap. This raises the question about how the hawkers maintain their cleanliness even after using the toilet. Without hand-washing soap, how do they make sure that their hands are clean while preparing the food?

This is indeed frightening to think of; a hawker not washing his hand properly after using the toilet and then handling your food. I feel that the food would definitely be dirty being handled this way. Not long ago, there were customers who had actually eaten food which was tainted with faeces and other bacteria. Would the issue of cleanliness of the hawker center toilets turn out to be another case of food poisoning soon if nobody steps in? I should think yes. With the food handled with dirty hands, I am sure bacteria would be passed to the food, causing bad cases of food poisoning to the customers.

Just by checking if the toilets are clean before deciding whether or not to patronize the hawker center is insufficient to ensure that this problem is solved. As a customer, he should report this case to the relevant authorities to ensure that action is taken to solve the problem. The hawkers should also be one of the people who have the responsibility to inform the authorities of the problem at hand. They should care the hygiene of the food they sell and also of the health of their customers. Perhaps the government should step in too, checking hawker centers regularly to ensure the hygiene of the toilets and also the stalls.