Prisons Council to construct modern hospital
The Ghana Prisons Council has announced plans for the construction of a modern hospital for the prisons service.
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The hospital, apart from addressing the healthcare challenges that the country’s prisons face, is expected to add to the number of health institutions that provide specialised care in the country.
The Chairman of the sixth Prisons Council, Reverend Dr Stephen Wengam, who made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said the plan formed part of the ‘Project Efiase’ and that drawings for the hospital were ready and awaiting funding for construction to start.
Project Efiase is a component of the 10-year strategic development plan being pursued by the council.
With a prison population of about 15,000 inmates in addition to 5,000 prison officials, the prisons service remains one key institution that lacks access to an institutional healthcare centre and assigned medical doctors.
‘Prisons Hospital would be beneficial to all’
Alluding to the benefits that the already established 37 Military and the Police hospitals had brought not only to those associated with those institutions, but to the generality of Ghanaians, Rev Wengam said the establishment of the Prisons Hospital would do same.
He said under the Prisons Regulations, the service was enjoined to ensure that a medical officer attended to a sick inmate at least once a day.
Rev Wengam added that the service was currently faced with serious challenges in the provision of healthcare services for both officers and inmates and it was an area that required urgent attention if the service was to operate efficiently.
Rev. Dr Stephen Wengam
“The existing healthcare facilities in our prisons are far below the minimum standards for even the country let alone meeting the international standards for keeping offenders,” he stressed.
Inability to provide first aid
He said the few infirmaries in the prisons were inadequately equipped to offer the essential healthcare support to inmates as they required the requisite medical equipment and personnel to provide basic first aid to inmates before being referred to hospital.
“Apart from the HIV/AIDS control programmes which are partly supported by the Ghana AIDS Commission, health care in the service is isolated from the general healthcare system under the Ministry of Health because prison health issues are under the Ministry of the Interior and not the Ghana Health Service as the case should have been, thus hampering the quality of health care and continuum of care following release,” he lamented.
But, thankfully, he said, as part of the government’s support for ‘Project Efiase’, 7000 out of the 15,000 population of prisoners had been registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
Waste of human resource
He said the situation on the ground was grim and further aggravated the suffering inherent in incarceration, saying that when one prisoner was admitted to hospital, at least three prison officers would have to take turns to provide a 24-hour guard duty.
“To this end, over 500 of our officers virtually perform hospital duties daily across the country which is a heavy toll on the security of the prison amid the dwindling staff strength,” he said.
Rev Wengam, therefore, expressed the optimism that the establishment of a hospital for the service would go a long way to alleviate the plight of inmates and officers, would step up efforts at rehabilitating the state of the country’s prison and also offer access to all Ghanaians who sought health care.