- SA nurse dies of killer-TB in overcrowded Pollsmoor prison,
Cape Town
-
- Nurse dies of killer-TB in Cape Town's overcrowded Pollsmoor
prison; two inmates also diagnosed -- prison health care in 'meltdown'
...
-
- According to a report by investigative journalist
Norman Joseph of the Cape Argus, published on June 19 2007 in Cape Town,
a Pollsmoor prison hospital nurse and a prisoner have already died a few
months ago of the killer-TB strain in this overcrowded prison --
which is sectioned off into three areas where criminal syndicate bosses
are in complete charge. The prison's health care system is in "meltdown',
the Cape Argus journalist also warned.
-
- Two inmates infected with the drug-resistant tuberculosis
strain -- and which is untreatable with any drugs -- were transferred to
a specialist TB-hospital where one has since died, it has now been revealed.
-
- The Cape Argus report did not mention whether any
of the more than 7,000 inmates and 1,250+ staff members (and their
families) at this seriously overcrowded prison in Cape Town have since
then been tested for the killer-TB strain.
-
- It's also not known whether the dead nurse and the infected
inmates had been kept in quarantine to stop them from infecting the
more than 7,000 prisoners and staff members.
-
- Only one nurse to treat 1,000 prisoners a day..
-
- A prison source has told the Cape Argus newspaper 's
journalist that healthcare at the gigantic Pollsmoor Prison near Cape Town
is 'in crisis,' with only one nurse often having to treat more than
a thousand inmates a day.
-
- Also, hospital manager Andries Slinger was suspended
from duty amid allegations that he was endangering the lives of inmates
by withholding vital medicines.
-
- The maximum security prison was built in 1964 and holds
some of South Africa's most dangerous criminals and roughest gangsters
-- but also looks after trial-awaiting prisoners in a seperate section.
The prison officially is supposed to have staff of 1,278 and the capacity
to accommodate 4,336 offenders -- howevert the current inmate population
is well over 7,000 and the staff contingent is at an all-time low.
-
- Crime syndicates rule Pollsmoor prison life: with the
ruthless leaders of crime syndicates from the 'coloured' Afrikaans-speaking
communities on the Cape Flats near the city running three segregated sections with
500 to 750 inmates each. These gang members are kept under control with
daily supplies of drugs and through routine sexual violence.
- View the BBC-documentary about Pollsmoor prison
life:
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/1645360.stm
-
- Due to the fact that the terrified warders -- who usually
cooperate with the gang leaders -- are present in these sections for less
than two-thirds of the day, these gangs are enormously powerful inside
the communal cells -- but also outside the prison, as these gang bosses also
run the hugely popular sex-industry in Cape Town.
-
- The overwhelming majority of these prisoners are from
depressed communities on the Cape Flats, where there is large-scale unemployment,
homelessness and gangsterism which local communities occasionally fight
back against through the People against Gangsterism and Drugs citizens'
rights groups by torching the cars and homes of known gangsters.
-
- With the sex-tourism trade to SA still rising more each
year, Cape Town's infamous 'sex-tourism' has now become a multi-million industry
which are run by these huge crime syndicates. It's just a matter of
time before the first XDR-TB patients with this unique "SA-1"
TB+HIV mutant strain also start showing up in the rest of the world. It's
incurable with any drugs and very infectious.
-
- http://ccrweb.ccr.uct.ac.za/archive/two/11_2/journey.html
-
- Recently some parliamentarians also visited Pollsmoor
and found dreadful conditions, with expired medicines and a critical shortage
of nurses.
-
- the Cape Argus reporter only discovered during his
investigation into this 'health-care meltdown' at the prison that one
nurse had already died of drug-resistant TB at the prison hospital
some two months ago. It could not be confirmed whether she had been infected
with the killer-TB strain by Pollsmoor inmates, but one prisoner with
Multiple Drug Resistant-TB has since then been transferred to a city hospital
for 'treatment', and another prisoner with extremely drug-resistant TB
(XDR-TB), moved to Cape Town's specialist TB-hospital, has since
died.
- The prison has neither the necessary medicine nor the
medical resources to treat XDR-TB infected prisoners.
-
- Damning report from inspecting-judge of prisons:
- Inspecting Judge of Prisons Mr Juscie Nathan Erasmus
also visited the prison hospital recently and has compiled a damning report
which he has sent to Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour.
-
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollsmoor_Prison
- http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=
- 125&art_id=vn20070618104701176C119063
-
- This extremely deadly strain of extremely-drug-resistant
Tuberculosis was first identified in South Africa in 2003 -- and has now
become an epidemic all over the country. And ominously, the latest death
statistics have not been released to the SA news media by the DOH: their
last news release on the subject was issued at the end of March 2007. The
SA DOH also still refuses to forcibly isolate any of these infectious drug-resistant
TB patients who refuse hospitalisation. Many of these patients are walking
away from TB-hospitals and going home - and nobody is stopping them. Previously
healthy people are now also beginning to die from it inside the communities
all over South Africa, some even at home.
-
- See the news clip with DOH deputy director Ms Matsau
explaining this policy:
- http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz5lI3Hc5Xc
-
- South Africa's Department of Health (DOH) is meanwhile
still planning a class-action lawsuit for the release of a large number
of quarantined XDR-TB patients at the high-security state-run Sizwe Tropical
Diseases Hospital in Rietfontein near Johannesburg.
-
- There are at least 168 drug-resistant patients in quarantine
there including 16 children.
- Doctors warn that they all pose a serious infection danger
to the community because these patients are not responding to antibiotic
treatment and remain highly infectious.
- http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz5lI3Hc5Xc
|
