Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

All vis­its at all of the na­tion’s pris­ons were sus­pend­ed un­til fur­ther no­tice with im­me­di­ate ef­fect from yes­ter­day as a mea­sure to safe­guard against the spread of COVID-19.

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Den­nis Pul­chan yes­ter­day said the ac­tion has come as a di­rect re­sult of med­ical ad­vice to take cer­tain mea­sures to pro­tect the prison en­vi­ron­ment from any pos­si­ble con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and in an ef­fort to pre­vent the spread of COVID-19.

In a press re­lease, Pul­chan said in­mates’ fam­i­lies were al­lowed to vis­it the pris­ons last week­end to pur­chase items for their loved ones and added that the proac­tive mea­sure was fa­cil­i­tat­ed to al­low the in­mates to ob­tain their items be­fore com­plete­ly sus­pend­ing pub­lic con­tact to pro­tect them.

He ad­vised the pub­lic that all fea­si­ble mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed in an ef­fort to low­er the risk of both staff and in­mates from con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.

Some of the mea­sures in­clude ther­mal scans of all peo­ple en­ter­ing the pris­ons, ad­di­tion­al sinks in­stalled at strate­gic points with­in the pris­ons, sani­ti­sa­tion of build­ings and sig­nage rel­a­tive to the com­bat­ing the virus.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the T&T Prison Ser­vice will be im­ple­ment­ing video con­fer­enc­ing via Skype for in­mates to com­mu­ni­cate with their fam­i­lies by pre­arranged ap­point­ments.

“Fam­i­lies are re­mind­ed that the Prison Ser­vice’s tele­phone land­line sys­tem re­mains in op­er­a­tion for clients to speak with their fam­i­lies,” Pul­chan said.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the de­vel­op­ment of the COVID-19 (coro­n­avirus) sit­u­a­tion, and will give a sub­se­quent up­date on the com­mence­ment of the video con­fer­enc­ing and even­tu­al­ly, the re-es­tab­lish­ment of vis­its.”