A Ho Circuit Court has directed the Volta Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Volta Regional Commander of Prisons Service to investigate how prisoners at the Ho Prisons contracted anal and genital infections.
It also directed that the result of the investigations should reach the court within two weeks.
Mr Justice Ernest Yao Obimpe, who was sitting as an additional Circuit Court Judge, gave the order when four suspects appeared before the court.
“In consideration of my observation of this health problem, I am directing the Volta Regional Director of the MOH and the Commander of Prisons Service, Ho, to team up and investigate the cause of the sores and rashes around the anal and genital parts of suspects and find possible solution to it”, he said.
Justice Obimpe said he had observed that most of the remand prisoners brought before him from the Ho Central Prisons complained of rashes and sores in and around their anus and on the penises.
“I have had the chance of personally inspecting the backside of one remand prisoner, and what I saw was troubling, ” he lamented.
When contacted, Mrs Emma Sawyerr-Laryea, the Commander of the Prisons Service, Ho attributed the cause of the problem to the congestion in the prison.
She said instead of the 150 inmates the prisons had the capacity to accommodate, it now had more than 400 including 111 suspects on remand.
Mrs Sawyerr-Laryea also said the nutritional values of the food the prisoners were supplied with was low because they were given a budget of 60 Ghana Pesewas for three meals daily.
She appealed to the courts to assist in decongesting the prisons by not sending suspects on remand at the slightest chance. She suggested the Alternative Dispute Resolution method in finding solutions to some of the cases instead of sending them to court.
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