Tight measures in place at Dodds

The Government of Barbados today insisted that Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds is closely following protocols to prevent the outbreak of COVID-19 among inmates and staff.

In making the announcement, Minister of Home Affairs Edmund Hinkson rejected suggestions by the opposition The People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP) that the screening protocol at the prison was inadequate.

The party, led by Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley, had also suggested that all inmates who have been recently remanded should be tested.

But Hinkson said the prison service has a health protocol for some time now which had been developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Health.

Hinkson told Barbados TODAY: “This protocol is enhanced during every national influenza outbreak. Hence, management initiated and activated its response protocol to COVID-19 in early February. Any suspected cases of flu-like symptoms are assessed and evaluated by medically trained personnel.”

He said that any prisoner suspected of flu or any similar illness is isolated in the prisons’ medical unit and the senior medical health officer at the St. Philip Polyclinic is informed.

The Minister responsible for the prison also said that an inmate remains isolated until the diagnostic test conducted on him is confirmed.

He explained: “If it is found that the prisoner does have the flu or any similar illness, he will remain isolated and treated. All visits to Dodds, whether by relatives, friends or anyone outside of the prison’s staff or maintenance team, have been prohibited since the curfew took effect.

“My information is that all officers from the superintendent right down, are temperature-tested and hand sanitized on entry through the prison gates.

“Thereafter, any officer entering any unit housing either remand or convicted prisoners are again tested and hand sanitized.”

He also revealed that all prisoners now entering the prison for the first time are interviewed and questioned on their present health status, and then screened and tested for temperature.

Hinkson said: “They are then placed in an isolated area, separate and apart from those who are already incarcerated. They are thereafter periodically tested by public health personnel for the next 14 days before being allowed entry to the general prison quarters.”

He told Barbados TODAY that any such prisoner now entering for the first time who is suspected of having COVID-19 will be tested for that disease before they enter the prison compound.

“Any inmate who is discovered to have COVID-19 will automatically be transported to one of the locations identified by the Government for treatment. The same goes for any such prison officer.”

“I can assure the public that the protocols and guidelines established by our health policy makers will be strictly complied with and applied in terms of contact tracing and isolation in the event of any discovery of COVID-19 affecting any prisoner or prison officer,” the Home Affairs Minister emphasized.

He said the public can be confident that the prison service has adopted the best possible policies and protocols, approved by the Health Ministry, to deal with this major global health challenge.                                                                                                                                        “I commend the prisons management and staff, who are in the front line and who are essential to our country’s national security, for their continuing effort to make the Dodds facility as safe as can be for those who are incarcerated,” Hinkson concluded. emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb