Superintendent of Prisons, Lt. Col. John Nurse, who was previously in quarantine, was on hand to speak to the media.
ALL is well at Her Majesty’s Prisons Dodds.
So says Superintendent of Prisons, Lt. Col. John Nurse. He was speaking during yesterday’s media conference hosted at the St. Philip facility to update the public on the fallout from the current COVID-19 spike.
Noting that several swirling rumours were taking away from their ability to do the work that needs to be done, Lt. Col. Nurse explained that things were stable at the prison.
“Right now the situation at the prison is stable and it continues to be so. We have over 70 officers who have reported to duty on a rotational shift basis and we are able to, in large measure, put a number of the systems that we usually have in place back into place. Of course there would be some restrictions as we have suspensions of certain activities to allow us to focus on what is absolutely necessary at this stage to make sure a healthy and safe environment,” he said.
Stating that cleaning and sanitisation continued on a daily basis across different locations in the prison, Lt. Col. Nurse said that morale was up and that he expected things to come under complete control in short order.
“The staff who have reported are quite happy in doing what they have to do. The inmates who are here are all settled. They are participating in whatever activities are available to them and we hope that we can return to a state of absolute normalcy in a very short space of time.”
With the outbreak causing a complete shutdown of the penal facility, there were several persons scheduled for release and the Superintendent said that different systems were in place to see people being able to reunite with their families.
“For the month of January, there are about 26. And we are in the process of looking at how that can be achieved and achieved safely. Of course you will appreciate that there will be some medical input into that to make sure that we are doing all of the things correctly. So that should start rolling out fairly shortly. Fortunately, there are not very many numbers to date, but as the month unfolds, you will see it picking up a little bit.”
When asked if there was any unrest within the walls of the prison, Lt. Col. Nurse said that there was none to his knowledge, but that there was little he could do to control the thoughts of others.
“Prisoners who have been here have gone through issues before and we know how to operate, we know how to behave. But of course, an individual will have concerns. We have all been listening to the news, we have all been watching our televisions. We know what is going on in other countries as it relates to COVID-19, so there are fears, and genuine fears. What we have been doing is attempting to quell those fears and to provide the level of professional care to all of our prisoners and all of our staff to make sure that we can be as comfortable as possible knowing what we are supposed to do and how we are supposed to do it. I really can’t transport myself into someone else’s brain to say to them, ‘Forget the dangers or forget whatever else is there and be cool and calm.’ All we can do is what we need to do to make sure that the environment is safe. And what we need to be able to do is to communicate that to all. Then their behaviour in terms of how they accept that and project that, is completely up to them,” he said.
With many other businesses and organisations leaning very heavily on technology to operate daily, Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams, who was also in attendance, was asked about the resumption of virtual visits given the current situation. However, he explained that once it was possible, it would be resumed, but until then no non-essential services were being offered at the prison.
“We are trying to resume as many of the normal procedures as quickly as possible because the aim is to make people comfortable. If people are comfortable, then you get less issues in a prison setting. Right now, we do not have the staff capacity and because of the restrictions on movement, it is difficult to put those sort of things in place at this point in time. All of the non-essential services in the prison have been cut out entirely. The officers who are here have to manage every single thing and it is difficult to police all of those aspects properly. And I’m not prepared to sacrifice the security of the prison just to accommodate what is not an essential service,” Abrahams said.