OVER crowding and poor diet for prisoners in the Ho Central Prisons have been identified as the major cause of skin diseases attacking the inmates.
According to the findings of the five-member committee set up by the Volta Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service and Ghana Prisons Service, 32 out of the 109 remand prisoners had various degrees of skin lesions on their buttocks, groins, backs, legs and abdomen.
The investigation was conducted on the orders of the Ho Circuit Court presided over by Justice Ernest Yao Obimpe.
The judge gave the order when one Amaglo Dela Vidza who appeared before him complained of rashes on his penis and anus.
The five-member committee found out that cells which were meant for 10 and 12 people, contained 53 and 56 inmates who had to be packed “like sardines with bodies touching one another when sleeping at night.”
Some of the remand inmates have been in the prison since 2001 and have appeared before court several times but they have neither been sentenced nor freed.
They also found out that the 60 pesewa feeding allowance per inmate was grossly inadequate to provide them any reasonably balanced diet three times a day to boost their immunity.
To solve the problem, the committee recommended that the courts should dispose of cases before them rapidly and should award fines in lieu of custodial sentences for minor offences like “ stealing of plantain.”
The committee also recommended the fumigation of cells and the isolation of persons with the skin diseases.
“If possible, the prison should be expanded since the population has increased,” the committee recommended.
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