With overcrowding in prisons like Chichiri, inmates are prone to diseases such as tuberculosis.
However, it becomes a challenge for prisoners to access medical care outside the walls as this demands extra resources to ferry the patients to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) for medical treatment.
But this could be history at Chichiri Prison as Medicins Sans Frontieres has constructed a healthy facility inside the walls of Chichiri prison to help inmates with medical care.
The prison has now two more structures that are to be used to help mainly tuberculosis inmates.
Sources revealed that one building is to be used as a dispensary and testing of tuberculosis patients while the other is to be a ward for the patients.
Commenting on the development, Victor Mhango who is Executive Director for Centre for Human Rights, Education Advice and Assistance (CHREAA) commended the organization for constructing the health facility.
“This is quite good to our inmates because they are to have easy access to medical treatment, especially those who were diagnosed with tuberculosis,” said Mhango.
He further expressed a need to have facilities in other prisons of the country saying other prisoners face similar challenges in accessing medical treatment.
Mhango also urged the government to take full responsibility of taking care of the prisoners in the country by ensuring that inmates too have access to quality health care.
Overcrowding in Malawi’s prisons is a challenge that has been on record for years. This has been putting lives of inmates at risk as they easily contract diseases.
