The 235 prison facilities
in Nigeria currently hold 750 mentally-ill inmates, many of who often
attempt to physically harm themselves or commit suicide.
Findings indicated that the mentally- sick inmates are often placed under sedation to keep them under control.
Out of the 750 inmates with mental
disorder, 250 are psychotic- a loss of contact with reality that usually
includes false beliefs about what is taking place and seeing or hearing
things that are not there (hallucination).
Five hundred are said to be neurotic-a
functional disorder in which feelings of anxiety, obsessional thoughts,
compulsive acts, and physical complaints without objective evidence of
disease, dominate the personality.
Sources told our correspondent that the
mentally-ill inmates were mostly kept in isolation to ensure the safety
of other inmates.
“To keep the mentally sick inmates in a
good frame of mind for proper prison environment conduct, we need
expensive drugs and psychotherapy, but our annual budget is insufficient
to buy all the drugs they need to sustain their upkeep and the demands
that other inmates place on us,” a senior prison official said.
It was gathered that some of the
mentally-ill inmates who are being kept in Kuje, Kirikiri, Calabar and
other prisons, were identified as being ‘criminally insane’ because
they were believed to be mentally impaired at the time of commission of
crime and might not know the gravity of their crime.
Our correspondent learnt that the
inmates exhibit serious symptoms of insomnia (sleeplessness),
aggression, tension, and psychosomatic complaints. Others include
crying spells, suicidal attempts, hallucinations, self-harming attempts,
low mood and insecurity.
Some conditions such as depression and
bipolar disorders, experienced by such inmates are said to be chronic
and cannot be cured but could be managed.
The Assistant Controller-General in
charge of hospital service, Mrs. Ikemjika Nwosu, said the Nigeria Prison
Service expended a lot of effort and money to keep the inmates safe and
secure and prevent them from harming themselves and others.
According to her, the service has
evolved strategies to keep the mentally-ill inmates in good physical and
mental condition by ensuring that they have access to medical care.
“Like other inmates under our care, we
take good care of the mentally-ill inmates by ensuring their welfare and
giving them access to quality medical care,” Nwosu added.
Asked if the families of the
mentally-ill inmates come for them after their sentences, the NPS Public
Relations Officer, Kayode Odeyemi, explained that their families come
for them. She added that the prison management had the contacts of the
family members and ensures that they did not abandon the convicts after
being discharged from prison.
No comments:
Post a Comment