[The Saxony public health service regulation]

Roughly only one year had passed after German reunification when the Saxon Health Service Law was enacted hat been conceived as the "constitution" of a public health service at a time when, ill-prepared, it faced the monumental task of bridging the gap between the gap between the public health structures of the former GDR and the legislation and experience of the Federal Republic of Germany. Essential aspects of the Public Health Law of the State of Saxony are: a) the fusion of both human and veterinary medical authorities into one ministry to enable the foundation of, amongst other things, an optimal organisational and structural basis for standardised care; b) the delegation of responsibility to the health department for the general health maintenance tasks of illness prevention, counselling and care of the population; c) special emphasis on environmental health protection measures, necessitated by the serious and hardy improved state of the environment. Uniform structuring and a minimum staff size are recommended for the Saxon health, food supervision and veterinary departments. Further legislation, statutes and guidelines that have since been passed are consistently assigning additional specific tasks and responsibilities to these departments.