Inmates should be healthy—Dignitas

Officials from the Zomba Maximum Prison have said interventions from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at the prison’s health unit complement government’s effort in the provision of good health services to inmates.

Medical officer at the facility, Moses Chigayo, said this on Thursday when Dignitas International held a five-day tuberculosis (TB) mass screening campaign among inmates at the prison.

Chigayo said TB is one of the diseases prevalent among inmates at the facility, but since the Dignitas intervention some years ago, there have been a drop in patients as well as referrals of critically sick inmates to Zomba Central Hospital.

Chigayo said in February this year the jail had 32 TB patients, but by mid-July, six patients completed their treatment and got cured. The remaining patients will complete their dosages in a few weeks time.

He said: “We are optimistic that other TB patients still on treatment will be cured as they are responding well to the drugs.”

On his part, Dignitas clinical officer Happy Mpawa said their organisation envisions having disease-free inmates.

Said Mpawa: “Our secret is that we use direct observed treatment where we meet with sick inmates on daily basis, to ensure they take the drugs in our presence. Those who abscond are followed to their cells, a development that has led to the genesis of curbing various diseases at this prison.”

TB  is a problem Malawian prisons with screening at Mzimba Prison recently detecting six cases of multi-drug resistant TB.