JEDDAH – Prisons need to be expanded to eliminate overcrowding so that they become healthy environments for both prisoners and staff, a workshop at Jeddah's King Fahd Hospital was told. Specialists told the workshop, organized by Tarahum Society for Prisoners, that the main challenges prisons face include maintaining hygiene, increasing awareness among prisoners about cleanliness, reducing the number of delayed hospital appointments, increasing the capacity and staff at prisons and allowing the families of prisoners to accompany them to hospital if they are to be admitted as in-patients. Fahd Ghamri, head of environmental health and career health at the Ministry of Health, said ministry officials make field tours and write reports containing recommendations for developing health and safety inside prisons. Ghamri said there have been improvements in prison conditions. Legal consultant Ghazi Al-Saban said that while prisons should punish and rehabilitate inmates, they should not deprive them of health care. The law, said Al-Saban, gives prisoners the right to be treated for any diseases they may have before entering prison or those they develop before they have completed their sentences. The law also gives special attention to pregnant inmates who should receive care during pregnancy and be transferred to hospital when they go into labor, he said. He said new mothers are not to leave the hospital until they are cleared by their doctors. Children can stay with their incarcerated mothers in prison until they reach the age of two. New mothers can also choose to hand over their children to fathers or relatives to take care of them while they serve their sentences. The law also frees prisoners who are suffering from deadly diseases under the condition that they return to prison when they get better. However, participants at the workshop demanded implementing a system that better supports prisoners with chronic diseases. Mohammad Al-Subhi, CEO of the office at Tarahum in Jeddah that follows up the cases of prisoners and liaises with them and their families, said there are a number of difficulties that prisoners and their families experience when it comes to receiving medical treatment. One such difficulty is that there are restrictions on prisoners receiving medication, as all medicines have to first be examined by a doctor. Al-Subhi suggested providing a list of medicines that can enter a prison without needing to be examined by a doctor, especially medication for chronic diseases that may not be available in the prison's pharmacy. He said prisoners should get reports outlining their medical history. To tackle the problem of prisoners who suffer from delayed hospital appointments, Al-Subhi suggested drawing up a schedule for all patients to be transferred to hospitals and provide more vehicles to take them to hospitals and enough security guards to accompany them. Ali Al-Gharni, general manager of prisons in Jeddah, said that they would be finalizing the construction of eight new prison wards to be ready by August 2013. This, he said, will hold 2,000 extra prisoners and help solve the problem of overcrowding. He added that his department would be increasing the number of staff in prisons soon.
