THE Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS), is struggling to settle a $3 million medical bill for inmates around due to the underfunding of the department by the government, a parliament report has revealed.
The debt was revealed in a recent report by Parliament portfolio committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, which was handed over to the speaker of parliament, Jacob Mudenda.
The report warned that failure by ZPCS, to settle the ballooning medical bills, was putting lives of inmates at “great” risk as most hospitals were now reluctant to attend to prisoners.
ZPCS runs clinics at some prison complexes where they attend to those with minor illnesses while inmates with major ailments are taken to government hospitals which the department is failing to pay.
According to the report, in the 2017 budget, ZPCS was given $501,000 for medical expenses against a target of $3 592 156.
“This hinders the procurement of drugs yet prisons are prone to communicable diseases and the organisation is failing to pay major hospitals for health services accorded to inmates,” read part of the report.
Some of the causes of diseases in prisons include overcrowding and a poor diet which the inmates are exposed to.
The prison diet could be improved, according to the report, if government funds farming activities which ZPCS used to carry out.
“ZPCS has 27 farms with 3 482 hectares of arable land most of which lies idle due to inadequate or late funding for inputs and equipment.
“It has the capacity to produce and feed all inmates if 637 hectares are provided with irrigation infrastructure,” the report recommended.