NSAWAM PRISON CLINIC IN DESPERATE NEED FOR GUN THERMOMETERS

Public Relations Officer of the Nsawam Prisons, DSP Adamu Abdul Latif has revealed that the prison’s
clinic is in dire need of thermal infrared thermometers. He made this disclosure on the side-lines of a
donation of health equipment to the prison clinic by the BESSTEL Foundation and Ghana-UK Mental
Health Alliance.

DSP Latif explained that due to confinement, inmates cannot practise social distancing. Atop of this,
chronic overcrowding has further heightened the risk level at the facility. He emphasised that the
lack of the gadget is hampering efforts of the prison clinic to detect symptoms of the virus and
ensure the safety of officers and inmates. The need for protective equipment at the prison clinic is
therefore an urgent need to protect officers, visitors and inmates of the prison.

“I think it [health equipment] is very important because the prison population now is more than the
capacity of even the prison. This prison was built to house somewhere around eight hundred
inmates but as it stands today we have about three thousand five hundred inmates in custody which
makes this issue of social distancing very difficult to achieve behind the prison walls. Because of that,
we are doing all that we can to make sure that the disease does not come to the prison. And one of
the ways we can do that is to screen whoever that comes into contact with the prison. And it is in
this direction that we are in desperate need of the thermal guns,” the PRO stated.

Like the prison clinic, all health facilities across the country are beefing up safety protocols in the
wake of the rising cases of the coronavirus infections in Ghana. The country’s situation stands at
1279 cases with 10 deaths. As the virus is transmitted by close contact with infected persons,
facilities like the prison remain a high-risk location for infections to fester.

The prison was therefore grateful to the BESSTEL Foundation and the Ghana-UK Mental Health
Alliance for donating a key item the clinic needed to ensure the safety of the prison. Reacting to the
donation of the thermal gun from, DSP Latif explained how the gadget would help the work of the
clinic staff.

“First and foremost, let me stand in for the Director General of Prisons and our Regional Commander
to express our sincere appreciation for the items donated particularly the thermal gun. Because you
all understand the medium by which the virus is transferred is by contact, so we cannot use the
normal thermometer we usually use. That is why the thermal gun has become so important in this
time so that we can maintain social distance while at the same time checking the temperatures of
people,” he stated.

He therefore called on corporate bodies and well-meaning individuals to emulate the example set by
BESSTEL Foundation and the Ghana-UK Mental Health Alliance to provide more equipment
especially thermal guns to the prison clinic.