Despite inmates and staff at Her Majesty’s Prisons Dodds continuing to test positive for the COVID-19 virus, a health official is reporting that the situation there is stabilising.
In addition, inmates whose time of imprisonment has ended should soon be set free.
Dr Carl Ward, who is working on the coronavirus outbreak at the prison as public health liaison officer, said yesterday that the worst had passed.
He was speaking during a press conference held at the St Philip jail to update the nation on the situation since the dreaded COVID-19 struck there two weeks ago.
“Dodds has been through the worst already. The prisoners are all stable,” Ward said, adding that many of the infected inmates were nearing the ten-day and 14-day isolation periods.
Delayed batches
It was only on Wednesday that the Ministry of Health reported 67 new infections among the 790 inmates at the prison, but Ward explained that those results were among the delayed batches.
“When the results come back they would have largely passed their time,” he said. “That is why I can say Dodds has been through the worst already.”
So far, 240 inmates and 72 staff have tested positive.
Ward added there were eight inmates and two officers with pending positive results.
Of the inmates, he reported that 76 had completed their 14 days in isolation on Thursday and another 34 were pending yesterday.
He also confirmed that none of them were in the medical facility which had been set up to deal with those who fell critically ill. The doctor said that so far only two inmates – one of whom was COVID-19 positive – and an officer had been treated there.
“We still expect some positive cases to come up among staff and inmates,” he said, as he referred to the delays and challenges. “There is not some explosion of cases at Dodds. We are now getting results of people who were positive some days back.”
The doctor explained that because of the large infected numbers, they could not all be facilitated in the large block which was identified to take quarantine inmates, so other blocks and sections were used as isolation areas.
Will be released
“When the 14 days are up, they will be released from isolation and free to be moved around as prison administration sees fit,” he said, adding that “in less than 14 days from today everything should be normal for the inmate population”.
However, he said there could still be a few more cases “because we still have outstanding results”.
Meanwhile, Superintendent of Prisons, Lieutenant Colonel John Nurse, said there were 26 inmates due to be released in January. They remained on lockdown, however, because of the COVID-19 outbreak which resulted in Government imposing a “no one in, no one out” policy at the prison.
Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams, speaking at the press conference, said: “We do not want to keep a person in prison a day or a second longer than they have to be here. If they have served their sentence, our priority is to try to get them out.”
He said the “no one in, no one out” policy “has been lifted slightly, so we are putting arrangements in place to separate those due to be released on a rolling 28-day period.
“Once they have two negative tests, then they are free to go. So we are not on any scheme to try to keep people here and deprive people of their rights,” he said as he responded to what he said was fake news circulating about the prison.
The minister also said all the inmates had been able to reach out to relatives and loved ones. (MB)
