DR. RAYMOTH Notice, who in May blew the whistle on the mass beating of prisoners by soldiers and warders at the prison in Spanish Town, was yesterday barred from an emergency meeting between medical doctors employed by the penal system and senior officers of the Correctional Services Department.
"I was told by Colonel John Prescod that I was not invited to this meeting. This was the first time that I was excluded from a medical meeting," Dr. Notice said when he was contacted yesterday.
However, Earl Fearon, head of Custody in the Correctional Services Department, said yesterday's meeting was for medical officers from the Tower Street and St. Catherine Correctional centres only, and that they were invited to discuss health issues.
Sources told The Gleaner the meeting was called following the discovery of more HIV cases at the prisons.
Reports are that there are plans to segregate inmates with HIV from the rest of the prison population, an issue at least two of the doctors in the penal system have opposed.
The Gleaner reported on Wednesday that 12 more new cases of HIV were detected at the St. Catherine Adult Correctional Centre, Spanish Town, after the Ministry of Health screened 90 prisoners through a voluntary test.
Dr. Yitades Gebre, of the Ministry of Health, confirmed the 12 cases, saying the testing was done during investigation of recent cases of tuberculosis discovered at the prison.
He promised that the current educational and prevention programmes in the correctional services would be reviewed and discussed by the Ministry of Health and authorities in the department.
Dr. Gebre said that small sample surveys done in the past had shown that prisoners have a three to four per cent higher risk of HIV infection than the general population.
-- G. Sinclair
