RATS ON REMAND

Prisoners contacted Newsday, from behind bars, to complain that “large, nasty” rats are everywhere including in the eating areas, in cells, in bathrooms, in the kitchen, in the prison officers’ quarters...even in prisoner’s beds. Videos recorded by Remand Yard, Golden Grove, Arouca prisoners on their cellular phones were sent to Newsday showing the rodents going about their business.

Prisoners said the problem of rats has always existed, but since late last year the infestation has grown worse. The rats have become bold, prisoners said, and are out and about at nights when prisoners are asleep and prison officers are off-duty.

Newsday understands that years ago, a contract was given to a local pest eradication company to exterminate the rodents and that company undertook a major fumigation of prisons.

However, the contract has since expired and with the latest rat infestation, executives of the prison authorities sent tenders for companies to bid for a new contract. While that process is underway, the rats are multiplying at a rapid rate, putting both prisoners and prison officers at risk.

Newsday understands prisoners now have to wash out their cells daily and clear their beds of faeces. President of the Prison Officers Association Ceron Richards confirmed that the association has received numerous complaints of rat droppings on desks, chairs, on bunk beds in prison officers’ dormitories and elsewhere.

He lashed the government, saying the rat issue, like several other problems plaguing the prison system, have been put on the back burner and in the meantime the infestation worsens and a health and safety problem is growing. Richards said that health and safety apart, the issue is fast becoming a human rights one.

“The government of Trinidad and Tobago is putting prison officers and inmates’ lives at risk.

Our association has received complaints from prison officers and prisoners, of rats infesting various prisons. The complaints have come from the Port-of- Spain Gaol, Golden Grove in Arouca and other facilities.

“Calls for help on this issue, just like our pleas for stab-proof vests and CCTV cameras to be installed are being ignored and in some cases bogged down by bureaucracy. The government knows they are dealing with prisoners who cannot leave the prisons and prison officers, who are too devoted to walk off the job. So we (prisoners and prison officers) have to take what we get. The only thing consistent with the State is their excuses and the fact that they are not dealing with this and other problems,” Richards said.

There is a fear that both prisoners and prison officers could fall ill from rat-borne diseases including Leptospirosis, which is spread via rat urine and which is dangerous in that if not treated, can lead to kidney damage, meningitis (inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord), liver failure, respiratory distress and death.

Rat-Bite Fever is also a common disease, which could be transmitted through a bite, scratch or contact with a dead rat. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, headaches, muscle and joint pain, and rash. This disease could also be fatal if left unchecked. Attempts to reach Minister of National Security Edmund Dillon and Commissioner of Prisons Sterling Stewart, yesterday for comment, proved futile.