Health Ministry orders audit into prisons

Officials from the ministry which is headed by Minister Terrence Deyalsingh will conduct health and safety audits at Portof- Spain prison, Golden Grove prison in Arouca, Carerra Island prison and the immigration detention centre in Santa Rosa.

Similar audits done recently at the Women’s Prison (which is in the Golden Grove facility) and the Youth Training Centre (YTC) gave these two institutions a passing grade. Prisoners at the remand yard section of Golden Grove, contacted Newsday on Tuesday to complain that rats were everywhere, in prison cells, the kitchen and bathrooms.

Prison Officers Association head Ceron Richards described the situation as being not only a health crisis but a human rights breach affecting both prisoners and prison officers. He accused Government of ignoring this and other outstanding issues on the grounds that prisoners, by virtue of being incarcerated, have no choice but to live in such conditions; while prison officers are too professional and patriotic to walk off the job.

Officials in the Health Ministry confirmed being aware of a long-standing rat infestation problem at Golden Grove because of poor waste disposal methods while complaints have been coming in recently at the city prison with the latter also having to contend with a pigeon problem. Ministry officials said regular inspection is carried out at all prisons, but officials can only advise officials of the Prison Service on dealing with health issues such as rat infestation.

Health officials cannot conduct their own clean-up and/or eradication exercise because large sections of the prisons are strictly off-limits to civilians.

Attempts to reach Prisons Commissioner Sterling Stewart yesterday proved futile but an official of the Prison Service said that the issue is being addressed with some level of urgency.

This is the latest issue to cause embarrassment to the authorities in charge of running the prisons and comes on the heel of reports that prison officers had to dip into their own pockets and raise $500 to repair a malfunctioning water pump at the island prison which led to dry taps for several weeks and prisoners having to bathe in the sea.

This despite the fact that $1 million was set aside in the National Budget to effect repairs or replace aging and/or non-functioning infrastructure at the island prison.