PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Human Rights Directorate has claimed that around 70 per cent prisoners in the Peshawar central prison including women and children are suffering from different skin diseases but they could not be treated due to lack of resources.

Following appearance of a news item in a local newspaper regarding spread of skin diseases inside the prison, the director human rights, Noor Zaman Khattak, visited the prison on Thursday along with a team of doctors from the Police Services Hospital to examine the suffering prisoners.

The prison is having a capacity of housing 850 prisoners, but presently around 2,200 inmates, including 40 women, have been imprisoned there.

After the visit the director compiled a report and told media persons that the situation was alarming as registration was done in Nov 2014 of prisoners suffering from skin ailments, but they could not be provided proper treatment till date. “Due to delay in provision of proper treatment the number of patients has been on the rise and presently around 70 per cent of the inmates have been suffering from dermatology related diseases,” he said.

He added that the doctors had prescribed medicines to the ailing prisoners now. He added that some of the affluent prisoners lodged in the ‘B’ class of the prison announced on the spot to donate money for the provision of medicines to these prisoners.

The prison officials reportedly told the director human rights that they lacked resources for treatment of such patients due to which the situation had aggravated.

This situation also belies the claims of the provincial government as recently the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly was informed by the prison department that medical staff had been deputed at all the prisons in the province, who had been providing medical treatment to prisoners round the clock.

In written reply to a question of MPA Najma Shaheen, the department had stated that all sorts of health facilities were being extended to the prisoners and their medical tests including that of hepatitis B and C and other blood related diseases were regularly being conducted.

The department had stated that the provincial government had released Rs6.434 million on account of provision of health facilities in the prisons. It was added that apart from medicines, medical equipment would also be purchased from that amount. It was claimed that specialist doctors from DHQ (district headquarters) hospitals had been visiting respective prisons on weekly basis and providing proper treatment to the inmates.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2015

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