Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

Some 240 in­mates were placed in iso­la­tion at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca yes­ter­day, af­ter 18 in­mates from a group of 29 who had com­plained of feel­ing un­well test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 over the week­end.

The con­fir­ma­tion came from Prison Com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan af­ter an in­mate at the fa­cil­i­ty record­ed some of the in­mates be­ing trans­ferred yes­ter­day and shared the video on so­cial me­dia. In the video, the in­mate claimed the pris­on­ers were be­ing moved to a cor­doned-off area of the fa­cil­i­ty.

Al­though ad­mit­ting to be­ing con­cerned that a pris­on­er had an il­le­gal cell­phone in the sys­tem, Pul­chan con­firmed the video was au­then­tic, say­ing it showed in­mates who were iden­ti­fied as pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary con­tacts of the in­mates who test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID be­ing tak­en out from their cells and placed in iso­la­tion where they are to be mon­i­tored for signs of the virus.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice ad­vis­es that the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison is un­der tem­po­rary lock­down af­ter 18 in­mates re­turned pos­i­tive re­sults for COVID-19. The pris­on­ers, who com­plained about feel­ing un­well, were placed be­fore the Pris­ons Med­ical Of­fi­cer who rec­om­mend­ed test­ing as per pro­ce­dure. They were test­ed on Thurs­day, No­vem­ber 5 and re­turned pos­i­tive re­sults the fol­low­ing day,” Pul­chan said.

“They were im­me­di­ate­ly re­lo­cat­ed to the Clax­ton Bay Cor­rec­tion­al Fa­cil­i­ty, our of­fi­cial COVID-19 treat­ment cen­tre and con­tact trac­ing was ini­ti­at­ed.”

Pul­chan said be­tween yes­ter­day and to­day, med­ical of­fi­cials are ex­pect­ed to con­duct fur­ther swabs to be sent for test­ing for the virus.

He not­ed the con­cerns of rel­a­tives and friends of both pris­ons of­fi­cers and in­mates over the sit­u­a­tion but is as­sur­ing all that the af­fect­ed per­sons are be­ing ob­served and mon­i­tored dai­ly and wel­fare of­fi­cers have been as­signed to up­date per­sons iden­ti­fied as next of kin.

“Con­tain­ment mea­sures have con­tin­ued with a sched­uled test­ing of in­mates iden­ti­fied as con­tacts to the pos­i­tive cas­es, dai­ly sani­ti­sa­tion ex­er­cis­es, ther­mal scan­ning of both staff and in­mates, manda­to­ry wear­ing of masks, util­i­sa­tion of full per­son­al pro­tec­tion equip­ment in ar­eas iden­ti­fied as hot zones, lim­it­ed move­ment or trans­fer of pris­on­ers and en­force­ment of ad­vi­sories for mem­bers of staff to de­sist from at­tend­ing work and seek med­ical at­ten­tion at the near­est health fa­cil­i­ty if feel­ing un­well,” Pul­chan said.

Pul­chan said as of yes­ter­day, the Prison Ser­vice had record­ed a to­tal of 29 pos­i­tive cas­es among in­mates through­out the na­tion’s pris­ons. He said they num­bers among the of­fi­cers had been as high as 75 at one stage but that had now dropped to 40 still quar­an­tined at home.

“Tasked with the man­age­ment of over 4,000 in­mates, we con­tin­ue to work as­sid­u­ous­ly and un­der the guid­ance of the ex­pert med­ical per­son­nel of the Min­istry of Health,” Pul­chan said.

With re­spect to the video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, Pul­chan ad­mit­ted that the ser­vice is “grap­pling” over the is­sue of mo­bile de­vices among in­mates.

“I do have my con­cerns and I do hope to find the per­son who would have il­le­gal­ly trans­mit­ted that par­tic­u­lar video,” he said.

“With re­gards to mo­biles, if I get 100 to­day, I will get 100 to­mor­row…We are grap­pling with this be­cause it does have a neg­a­tive im­pact be­cause shots are be­ing called against of­fi­cers from in­mates via the mo­biles and I am do­ing the best I can in deal­ing with this is­sue.”

Fol­low­ing news of lat­est pos­i­tive tests among in­mates, the Unit­ed Prison Move­ment UK said they too are con­cerned about the out­break through­out the na­tion’s pris­ons. In a state­ment, it said they had re­ceived “nu­mer­ous com­plaints that pris­on­ers are not be­ing al­lowed out for as­so­ci­a­tion (air­ing), they are not per­mit­ted can­teen vis­its and they have been told that there will be no fur­ther court hear­ings at this time.”

“It has al­so been sug­gest­ed to us that pris­on­ers are hav­ing meals pro­vid­ed up to and above six hours late. In ad­di­tion to this, we have been ad­vised that a num­ber of prison of­fi­cers have been test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19,” the UK move­ment added.

It al­so rec­om­mend­ed that while the con­tain­ment and/or pre­ven­tion of the virus is of con­cern, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty al­so had a du­ty to in­mates and staff.

“Fam­i­lies at this time have ex­pressed deep con­cern for their loved ones, par­tic­u­lar­ly those that are on re­mand at the Max­i­mum-Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP), where the out­break is be­ing de­scribed as out of con­trol. A pub­lic state­ment from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty at this time should help to al­le­vi­ate any con­cerns or fears they may have fol­low­ing ru­mours cur­rent­ly cir­cu­lat­ing—that a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of in­mates have been test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.”

The UK Move­ment has sug­gest­ed that “all court hear­ings should be al­lowed to go ahead if par­ties agree to con­duct the hear­ing re­mote­ly and that le­gal vis­its should re­main in place.