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‘I was in prison, you visited me’
By
by George Kasakula - 08-08-2002 |
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‘I was in prison, you visited me’
BLM goes behind bars
It is 9 AM inside Maula Prison in Lilongwe. Prison-ers are going about their normal chores. But at the prison’s clinic all is not well. Inmates are queuing outside the stuffy and hot clinic awaiting treatment. They cannot go inside because there isn’t enough space.
The inmates generally look dirty with some of them literally foul-smelling because they have not had a proper bath with soap for a number of days.
One inmate who is obviously in deep pain is lying down as he waits for his turn. But once he gets inside the clinic, the treatment will only be very basic because there are not enough drugs.
The same is true with Zomba Central Prison. The clinic for inmates there is just an old annex with scanty resources. For Mzuzu Prison, the dispensary has literally closed shop because it does not have even a single tablet.
When a Supreme Court Judge Michael Mtegha described Malawi’s prisons as “hell on earth” because of congestion and shortage of food and other resources, few might have believed him. But those that have gone to prisons as either inmates or visitors will have no reason to doubt the judge’s observations.
What the learned judge might have fallen short of saying is that when the inmates fall ill, they lack even the most basic immediate healthcare because the Malawi Prison Service subvention from government falls way below budget and is normally spent on other priority areas such as food.
Prisons chief medical officer Alban Yadidi says the problems affecting the health delivery system all emanate from lack of resources.
“We lack many things such as drugs, blankets, beds and linen.
Yadidi says because of the lack of resources, he is forced to refer all cases of ill inmates at Zomba Central Prison to Ward 11 of Zomba Central Hospital specifically built for them.
“But even there, there is congestion because the ward has a capacity of 22 beds but on most occasions, it takes double the number,” he adds.
Yadidi says the inmates are normally afflicted by diarrhoea, malaria, respiratory tract infections, TB, pneumonia, scabies and sexually transmitted diseases.
For Maula Prison in Lilongwe, the story is even more complicated.
Medical assistant Milda Salilika says the clinic does not have refrigerators to store drugs. This makes their efficacy questionable.
As a result of congestion, contagious diseases such as scabies and TB spread easily.
Salilika said the absence of isolation wards at the clinic makes the treatment of the diseases difficult because sick inmates are not separated from healthy ones.
She revealed critical cases are always referred to Lilongwe Central Hospital.
“Yet unlike Zomba Prison where inmates have a special Ward 11 at Zomba Central Hospital built by Red Cross a few years ago, we do not have the same facility at Lilongwe Central Hospital,” Salilika said.
Even with medical facilities provided for prisoners at the hospitals, many inmates are still unable to receive treatment in good time because the prisons to do not have transport facilities.
The same sad song is also sang by Mzuzu Prison.
Officer in charge Clement Kainja says that since the prison’s clinic has closed due to a shortage of drugs all inmates at his prison are referred to Mzuzu Central Hospital. As a result security is compromised. He added that some have absconded whilst being transported.
He says that there is sometimes an outbreak of scabies at the hospital because of congestion. The prison is meant to only take eighty inmates but now has over three hundred.
In the words of Kainja, what is received from government is spent on food and fuel deemed as priority areas. To expect government to solve all the health problems of the prisons in the country—which is important if they are to reform— is expecting the impossible.
Perhaps, it is out of this realisation that some NGOs in the country such as Banja La Mtsogolo (BLM) are coming to the rescue of the Malawi Prison Services in this area.
Since February this year BLM, has embarked on treating prisoners with sexually transmitted infections, malaria and scabies.
BLM marketing officer Rick Chikwekwe said recently that the programme is being implemented in 21 prisons targeting over 5000 prisons throughout the country.
The project is being funded by British Department for International Development (DFID) through the Malawi Access to Safety, Security and Justice (Massaj).
Chikwekwe said the programme is being implemented together with prison authorities, adding there is a steering committee consisting of BLM officials, donors, Civil Liberties and two ex-prisoners to evaluate it.
The marketing officer said that apart from treating inmates, the orgainsation also distributes soap, disinfects their cells and provides balls for soccer and netball.
“We also provide other services such as anti-Aids/HIV messages through drama,” said Chikwekwe.
Yadidi says BLM’s project has helped quite a lot because it is supplementing the government’s effort through the weekly visits that BLM officials make to prisons in order to help treat prisoners.
“BLM has been treating patients with STDs and other skin patients. They also donated some buckets for the general cleanliness of prisoners. The organisation has also introduced anti-HIV messages to the prisoners through drama,” Yadidi says of the project.
On her part, Salilika also hailed the project, saying that the treatment and the distribution of soap has gone a long way in solving some of the prisoners’ immediate health problems.
But Salilika suggested that BLM should allow prison medical staff to be present when they are seeing ill inmates because some inmates feign sickness in order to get drugs which they later sell them to other people.
Said Salilika: “Inmates cheat BLM staff by pretending that they are sick when they are not. If we can be present, we can tell this because we know our prisoners. In fact sometimes BLM officials do not have enough time to see the inmates. In such cases they should leave the drugs with us so that we can proscribe them to the inmates later.”
On a good note, the medical assistant said the project has had some positive impact in the reduction of diseases such as scabies, malaria, and sexually transmitted infections, adding it must go on.
Responding to the suggestion that prison staff should be present when BLM is dispensing drugs to the inmates, Chikwekwe said the proposal will be presented to the steering committee for consideration.
“It is a good proposal. We will present it to the committee. We might take it on board if the project gets the nod to run on after the pilot phase,” Chikwekwe said.
A prisoner at Mzuzu Prison Suwedi Mwaimbewe said that while the inmates appreciate BLM’s gesture, the drugs are sometimes not enough because there are many of them at the prison.
Mwaimbewe, who went to prison in 2001 and is serving a three year term for failing to account for vehicle spare parts stolen at his garage in Mzimba, said there was no scabies at the prison because of the drugs and soap which BLM distributes.
It is only through the provision of basic medical facilities and other needs to inmates in prisons throughout the country, that they can be expected to reform and rehabilitate themselves fully when they get back to society. Without this the reformation of 7,000 plus inmates languishing in the country’s prisons— to repeat Judge Mtegha’s words— is impossible.
BLM has started the ball rolling. It is up to others to follow.
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