Prisons Council demands establishment of Prisons hospital

The Prisons Council is proposing the establishment of a hospital for the prisons service.

The Council argues that such a hospital will ease access to efficient health care to inmates and personnel of the service.

According to the Council, the current arrangement leaves prisoners in particular, in dire conditions due to the challenges in accessing medical attention in critical situations. The Council wants government to wean the prisons service off the police and other public health facilities.

Chairman of the council, Pastor Stephen Wengam told a gathering at the one-year commemorative anniversary of the project effiase that government must consider the proposal.

“One of the major things we are tackling is the health needs assessment of the service. We keep building Police stations and we are not building prisons, we have Police hospital, 37 military hospital, how come we (prisons) don’t have a hospital, we are the only security service that take custody of people; fifteen thousand inmates, five thousand officers,” Rev. Wengam bemoaned.