Treatment of HIV/Aids, including the provision of anti-retroviral drugs, will now be available to inmates of Durban’s Westville Prison after a Durban High Court ruling by Judge Thumba Pillay.
Fifteen HIV-positive prisoners had taken the prison and the departments of health and correctional services to court to force them to fulfil their constitutional and legal obligation to provide treatment.
The departments and prison now have two weeks to come up with a treatment programme in accordance with the government’s National Operational Plan for Comprehensive HIV/Aids Care, Management and Treatment for the country.
The prisoners all had CD4 counts of below 200 cells per cubic milli-metre of blood, and during court proceedings one became so sick that he was admitted to a high-care unit at the prison’s medical facility.
According to papers filed by the Aids Law Project (ALP), which acted for the prisoners, there have been 110 Aids-related deaths at Westville Prison in the past year. The ALP says about 50 offenders, currently incarcerated at the prison, have a CD4 count of fewer than 200 cells per cubic millimetre of blood.
In his order Judge Pillay said that HIV/Aids treatment had to be provided to the 13 remaining applicants “and all other similarly situated prisoners” at Westville, “with immediate effect”.
However, the judge allowed a two-week period for a suitable treatment programme to be drawn up.
Judge Pillay criticised the responding government departments for “a singular lack of any commitment to appreciate the seriousness and urgency of the situation” regarding the prisoners’ need for treatment.
The prison authorities and the government departments had cited various obstacles which had caused the stasis in the treatment process.