Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) Ger­ard Gor­don says that a re­cent “out­break” of the vari­cel­la virus (chick­en­pox) at the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) is a sign of larg­er chal­lenges fac­ing the T&T Prison Ser­vice, as he warns that ex­ist­ing fa­cil­i­ties may not be enough to ad­dress such a high­ly con­ta­gious dis­ease.

On Fri­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion on its of­fi­cial Face­book page an­nounced that there was an out­break of chick­en­pox at the fa­cil­i­ty and urged of­fi­cers to ad­here to the “strictest pro­to­cols” of hy­giene to re­duce the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­fec­tion.

Yes­ter­day, the prison ser­vice in a me­dia re­lease re­vealed that there were 29 in­mates be­ing treat­ed at a con­tain­ment unit in the prison, while sev­en prison staff were on sick leave af­ter con­tract­ing chick­en­pox.

Ini­tial­ly, 72 in­mates con­tract­ed the dis­ease. But 43 in­mates were dis­charged and cleared. The out­break be­gan in No­vem­ber last year.

In their re­lease, the prison ser­vice stressed that cas­es were lim­it­ed on­ly to the MSP, as med­ical screen­ing of in­mates by in­fir­mary staff for ear­ly de­tec­tion, hourly sani­ti­sa­tion of shared spaces, and des­ig­nat­ed iso­la­tion for con­firmed cas­es were un­der­way.

The me­dia re­lease al­so re­port­ed that in­fect­ed in­mates re­mained in quar­an­tine for a pe­ri­od of 21 days un­til they un­der­went med­ical re-ex­am­i­na­tion by the prison med­ical of­fi­cer.

It stat­ed, “​​The safe­ty of our of­fi­cers is a pri­ma­ry con­cern, and in align­ment with Min­istry of Health rec­om­men­da­tions, ap­pro­pri­ate ​Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment (PPE), ap­proved masks, and gloves have been is­sued to the of­fi­cers as­signed to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, to be utilised dur­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of their du­ties.

“Fur­ther, di­a­logue was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to ​all per­son­nel about the avail­able pre­ven­ta­tive vac­cine. Med­ical man­age­ment sup­port is al­so com­mu­ni­cat­ed to staff who con­tract the chick­en pox dur­ing pe­ri­ods of manda­to­ry sick leave and quar­an­tine.”

How­ev­er, when con­tact­ed for com­ment, Gor­don said the sen­ti­ment among prison of­fi­cers was that more ought to have been done to pre­vent the out­break, as he claimed that cur­rent prison fa­cil­i­ties were not in line with work­place stan­dards and best prac­tice.

Gor­don charged that this would fur­ther high­light the ur­gency for a re­view of prison in­fra­struc­ture.

He al­so not­ed that prison of­fi­cers have re­port­ed that there may be cas­es where in­fect­ed in­mates were con­ceal­ing their con­di­tion from prison of­fi­cers con­duct­ing checks.

“This fur­ther com­pro­mis­es our abil­i­ty to man­age the sit­u­a­tion and they can at­tempt to hide be­cause as I said be­fore, staffing lev­els are lethar­gic at best, so it is best to re­al­ly see every­body and thus de­ter­mine, be­cause when we go and check and you al­so have to con­sid­er the po­si­tion of the of­fi­cer who doesn’t want to be in­fect­ed, so the sit­u­a­tion isn’t the best.”

Re­fer­ring to a large prison ri­ot which took place at the Gold­en Grove Prison, Arou­ca, in March 2020, where dis­grun­tled in­mates fought with prison of­fi­cers for fear of con­tract­ing the COVID-19 virus, Gor­don said the con­cern of a heat­ed con­fronta­tion be­tween prison staff and in­mates was nev­er far away.

He said the qual­i­ty of the prison fa­cil­i­ties added to these con­cerns.

“A lot of things are not work­ing as they should, a lot of things need main­te­nance, a lot of things need to be re­placed, and when you’re op­er­at­ing in such an en­vi­ron­ment—which is noth­ing strange to prison of­fi­cers—that is al­ways a con­cern that you may have some in­mates who may want to use this op­por­tu­ni­ty to do some­thing fool­ish.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe, but re­ceived no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day evening.