WA prison:
Shackled in death

"Tell us news not history", exclaimed Ms Kath Mallott of the Deaths In 
Custody Watch Committee, when asked to comment on a statement made by the 
Director of Prison Health Services in WA that there are poor standards of 
hygiene in the Infirmary at Casuarina Prison.

"We have been asserting for years that WA Prison Medical Services are 
horrific", said Ms Mallott. This followed the tragic death of a prisoner 
who died in shackles while in the Intensive Care Unit at Royal Perth 
Hospital.

The Director of Prison Health Services proclaimed in the Coroner's Court 
that the Casuarina Prison Infirmary is "a pig sty".

It took all this "before the media takes up the plight of prisoners' health 
needs in this State", complained Ms Mallott.

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody investigated the use 
of "mechanical restraints" by this State in two prison deaths in 1983, and 
Commissioner O'Dea noted that the United Nations Standard Minimum Rule 33 
required that:

"chains and irons shall not be used as restraints" and "may be used only 
against escape during transfer. Such instruments of restraint may not be 
applied for longer than is strictly necessary."

"Sixteen years later nothing has changed and seriously ill prisoners in 
this State continue to die while shackled to a hospital bed. It is 
barbaric", said Ms Mallott.

"We call upon, all thinking people, especially medical and nursing staff 
and their professional bodies, to examine their codes of ethics and 
conduct, and to demand that prisoners under medical and nursing care do not 
die in such circumstances, ever again."

Ms Mallott called for the implementation of the Australian Medical 
Association's (AMA) Position Statement on Health Care for Prisoners 
which states in clause 2.1:

"Every correctional facility health care service in Australian States and 
territories should be part of the general health system and independent of 
Departments of Corrective Services or their equivalent."

"We call for this to be implemented without delay", Ms Mallott concluded.