Health and security emergencies of unprecedented scale are staring at the Prisons Department after a few jail officials and prisoners were quarantined following two new inmates testing positive for SARS-CoV-2.
While some of the officials of the Special Sub Jail, Thiruvananthapuram; and Kannur Sub Jail have opted for quarantine in the jail itself, a few others have opted for home quarantine.
With the prospect of COVID-19 infection spreading among prisoners through new admissions remaining live and even threatening to put the lives of the jail staff and the prisoners at risk, the Prisons Department has decided to filter prisoners for admission.
“Only those prisoners who are tested negative for the disease can be admitted to the jails, failing which the jails will become the breeding ground of the disease,” said S. Santhosh, DIG, Prisons HQ.
Daily admissions
Each day 70 to 120 persons are brought to the jails. No new prisoner can be directly admitted to the jails without COVID-19 screening, he said.
The department is planning to approach the health authorities to ready transit shelters for the new inmates either in the prisoners wards of the medical colleges hospitals and district hospitals till their medical reports are ready.
Earlier, a decision of the department modifying the mandatory health check-up for new prisoners by including COVID-19 test in the list was watered down by the State authorities after the objections from some government departments, sources said.
Scaling up security
While admitting the new prisoners to the prison wards, the prisoners who are undergoing medical treatment there should be shifted to insulate them from the disease. The security provided for such prisoners will have to be scaled up when moved out of the prison wards, pointed out Mr. Santhosh.
The situation may turn grave when the 1,818 prisoners who were released on parole and self-bail start returning by the first week of June. These prisoners will also have to be screened for the disease. The prevailing situations in the jails may warrant the extension of the bail period of such prisoners, he said.
Though the Parippally Medical College Hospital, Kollam, has enough space for accommodating a good number of persons, the building lacks safety norms. The long halls and tall windows of the hospital without sufficient window grills pose serious security risk. Some of the jails are in unusable conditions, which compounds the situation, he pointed out.
