New Austerity Measures on Jaw Prisoners: Medication Unavailable, Prisoners Forced to Buy Medicines at Own Expenses
2019-11-19 - 11:57 p
Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): It seems that the Jaw Prison Administration is practicing new austerity measures and is violating the prisoners' rights and need for treatment and medicine. Prisoners reported that medicines whose prices don't exceed 7BD will not be available at the prison's clinic and that convicts have to buy them from outside prison at their own expense, as well as submitting a request for allowing their access. They also said that a number of medicines for chronic diseases haven't been available for months in Jaw prison, while painkillers haven't been available for weeks.
Human rights activist Ibtisam Al-Saegh said via her Instagram account that sick convicts called their families and told them that some medicines for chronic diseases have been cut off for months, while painkillers haven't been available since 3 weeks ago. Al-Saegh said that the prisoners filed their complaints to the officer in charge who promised them to provide these medicines for them soon, claiming that their shortage was due to their unavailability in ministry of health stores. Meanwhile, the nurse in charge of distributing the dosages said that medicines whose prices exceed 7BD won't be available anymore and that prisoners have to buy them from outside the prison at their own expense, as well as filing a request for allowing their access.
In the same context, Al-Saegh explained that the military hospital administration stopped receiving some cases of ill prisoners and transferred some files to Al-Salmaniya Medical Complex. Meanwhile, prisoners are suffering from delayed appointments which can take months to be made sometimes due to the large numbers.
As for the spread of skin diseases in the prison due to the filthy and unhealthy environment the prisoners live in, Al-Saegh said that the allergy cases in building number 4 raise concern due to the itchy red pimples that appeared on the prisoners' skin, noting that none of these cases were treated. Meanwhile, severe cases are being transferred to isolation prison, and instead of treating them, prisoners are given a cream that dries these pimples.