PRISONS COMMISSIONER Dennis Pulchan is strongly urging prisoners to take the covid19 vaccine after 34 prisoners at the Carrera Island Prison tested positive for the virus over the weekend.
Pulchan said even though the public is becoming receptive to being inoculated against the virus, vaccine hesitancy among the prison community remained alarmingly high.
He is now calling on prisoners to take one of the 3,700 vaccines made available to the prisons through the Ministry of National Security and Ministry of Health.
'It's they themselves that do not wish to take the vaccine. Now that it hit home, I'm hoping that good sense prevails, because I have made all these vaccines available to provide this opportunity for them.
"Now that it's hitting home and it is spreading at a faster rate, I hope they change their minds and take the vaccine.'
Last week, inmates at the facility were tested for the virus after several of them displayed symptoms of the virus.
Thirty-four of them were confirmed positive. Hours after information on a suspected outbreak at the prison went viral on Sunday, Pulchan told Newsday arrangements were being made to remove and isolate the men at facilities on land.
Newsday obtained a disturbing video of two prisoners, suspected to be covid19 positive, lying on the ground in an open isolated area on pieces of cloth.
Newsday was told the facility was sanitised at least three to four times daily, but was told inmates were against the decision to designate a 'cold' and 'hot' area on the compound to separate the covid19 patients.
In a telephone interview, Pulchan said prisoners who tested positive will be transferred to designated facilities on land.
'I want them in a place where we can quickly send them to a hospital or something. We are trying to meet the medical needs of the inmates and place them in an area where we could get them medical aid.
"At the end of the day, the prison service has a duty of care to its inmates to ensure their medical needs are met."
He said the Ministry of Health was also working with the prison to manage, hospitalise and treat critically ill prisoners.
He said inmates without comorbidities will be placed in designated 'hot zone areas,' while comorbidities will be hospitalised.
Pulchan refused to label the incident at the Carrera Island prison as an "outbreak."
'It is not an outbreak, it's a cluster,' Pulchan insisted.
'My population in a prison is roughly 3,675 on average and we only have close to 46 inmates who may be covid19 positive and because of our intensity of the way we are battling this pandemic we are keeping our numbers down.
"We have had higher numbers previously, so we're not doing too badly.'
He maintained that vaccination was the best chance to contain the virus behind prison walls and even with an ongoing sensitisation programme, over fifty per cent of prisoners are reluctant.
'People in the public are refusing to take their vaccine it's the same mentality that trickles down to the prison. I have had two deaths in
