The Correctional Services department’s efforts to establish the prevalence of HIV/Aids in prisons is being hamstrung by a lack of co-operation from staff and inmates alike, it emerged on Tuesday.
The department’s survey — intended to help make informed policy and strategy decisions, scientifically determine prevalence, and address speculation — was launched last year with a pilot project in Gauteng, and was completed on May 24 this year.
A representative sample of at least 10% — 768 staff and 2 770 offenders — was required for the survey to be viable, development and care chief deputy commissioner Jabu Sishuba told the National Assembly’s correctional services committee.
Sishuba said the participation rate of only 67 staff and 746 offenders was very disappointing.
There had been a serious lack of co-operation and participation by management, as well as ”non-visibility” of management before and during the pilot project, she said.
Staff and offenders had not been timeously informed, offenders were identified only on the morning of the survey, and offender participation in sports activities was prioritised over the survey.
Sishuba said a major obstacle was the high level of fear around HIV/Aids and the fact that testing was voluntary, not compulsory.
Both staff and inmates were afraid of the consequences of making their status known.
In an attempt to get beyond these obstacles when the project went national on October 2, the department was embarking on a vigorous communication and marketing strategy and encouraging senior management participation.
Among other things, special task teams to manage the survey were being established in each region.
Prominent ”external people” and NGOs would also be used during information sessions and the survey would be combined with other HIV/Aids awareness-raising events.
Turning to current departmental HIV/Aids projects and initiatives, Sishuba said that the absence of compulsory testing for HIV again posed the greatest challenge to early detection, prevention, care, and management of the disease.
HIV was not a notifiable disease, and when offenders eventually disclosed their status it was often already ”too late”.
The department also lacked resources, particularly professional medical personnel.
Health practitioners were reluctant to work in prisons, mainly because of the dangers involved and the long hours, she said.
Some public health facilities, where offenders had to be taken for treatment, did not take kindly to inmates ”coming with handcuffs”.
However, national guidelines were being developed for the department to facilitate offender access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment.
Three prisons — Grootvlei in the Free State and Pietermaritzburg and Qalakabusha in KwaZulu-Natal — had already been accredited as ARV sites, and 250 nurses were to be trained in the comprehensive management of HIV and Aids-related diseases. Other prisons to be accredited were being assessed.
Further projects and initiatives included correctional centre-based care, therapeutic interventions, support groups, and release on medical parole, Sishuba said.
Deputy Correctional Services Minister Loretta Jacobus told the committee the perception that offenders ”go to jail and get infected” with HIV had to be clarified.
Although there were a few unfortunate cases of inmates contracting HIV while in prison, it was incorrect to say the majority of HIV-positive offenders became infected inside, she said. – Sapa