Concern over prison medical care

THERE ARE some serious shortcomings in the medical services offered at the Central Prison, the House Human Rights Committee found yesterday.

In its second visit to the institution in a fortnight, the committee attempted to spot the problems in order to examine ways of resolving them.

Committee Chairman Sophocles Fyttis of DIKO said deputies had visited the prison’s workshop areas, the women’s prison and the open prison.

What Fyttis and his fellow deputies were most concerned about was the medical service offered. They said this would be discussed next Tuesday by the Committee in the presence of the relevant official bodies.

“Both the Committee members and the prison staff are not satisfied with this issue,” said Fyttis.

“There is one psychiatrist, one pathologist and a few nurses, which isn’t enough to cover the needs of the prisoners, but also the staff,” he added. “We are seriously concerned about this matter.”

But on a more positive note, Fyttis pointed out that tenders had been opened for the creation of the prison’s Medical Centre. “This will offer protection and therapy to psychiatric patients and possibly detoxification to drug addicts,” he said. “We insist this centre must operate soon as there are serious health problems here.”

Regarding underage detainees, Fyttis said procedures had begun to renovate an old building in the prison area to facilitate them and separate them from other inmates, “and this is something we insist must happen as soon as possible”.

It wasn’t all negative though.

“The workshops offer the prisoners good training and education, and many of those reintegrate into society and have a specific profession, which they have been trained for in one of the workshops, such as carpentry, plumbing, the steel industry, electricians and many more,” Fyttis explained.

“Furthermore, there are lessons in English, Greek, carpentry, art and many more, comprised of teams of ten or more people.”