The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairperson, Dr Salamatu H. Suleiman has emphasized the need for inmates in nation’s Custodial facilities to enjoy general human rights, especially the right to good health pursuant to international human rights standards and best practices.
She said to ensure this informed NHRC to visit Custodial Centres, Police Cells and other places of detention in order to ascertain the conditions of these facilities and make recommendations to the appropriate authorities to mainstream human rights norms and tenets and/or best practices in their daily operations.
Dr. Suleiman who cited the National Human Rights Commission (Amendment) Act, 2010 which empowers the commission to embark on routine audit of the custodial facilities, stressed that the “welfare and access to medical care for all inmates cannot be over emphasized”.
She spoke while leading a delegation of NHRC’s Board members, officials and the Medical Team of Gift Health Plus Inc to the Nigerian Correctional Service, Headquarters Abuja as part of the flag off of the 2022 nationwide audit of custodial and detention facilities in the 36 states of the Federation including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
She used the opportunity to formally hand over cartons containing about 500 prenatal drugs and 1000 reading glasses to Controller General on behalf of the Commission and Gift Health Plus Inc, which is a nonprofit organization based in the United States and committed to protection of
the human rights of detainees.
According to her, “The Health Team of Gift Health Plus will accompany the Officials of NHRC throughout the 2022 Audit of the Custodial Centres and Detention Facilities across the country to give pre-natal vitamins to female inmates and conduct eye screening exercise and give reading glasses to inmates that are need.
She urged the Nigerian Correctional Service to give the NHRC Officials and the Medical Team of Gift Health Plus, the maximum cooperation needed to ensure that the Medical Outreach during this 2022 Audit of the Correctional Centres across the Country is a successful one.
In response, the Controller General of Custodial (CGC), Haliru Nababa mni, noted that to show their emphasis on the healthcare of inmates, records showed that the Nigerian Custodial Service had no incident of Covid-19 during the pandemic era.
He said similarly, with several disease outbreaks, the Service has been able to prevent these epidemics from spreading into Custodial Centres.
According to the CGC who was represented by the Deputy Controller General (Health and Welfare) Covering Duty, Mrs Marylaurine Melchizedek, “To us, good prison health is good public health, that cannot be better phrased because of the ceaseless movement of inmates, visitors and personnel in and out of custodial centres.
“Therefore, if the health of prisoners are compromised, the chances are that transmissible diseases can easily spread through these channels to the general public. Thus, healthcare for the staff and inmates are always a priority.
“To advance the course of ensuring good healthcare within the custodial environment, we embark on vigorous preventive health campaigns and in collaborations with other Agencies, which is part of what you are doing today”.
Earlier, the Executive Director of Gift Health Plus Inc. USA, Mr. Chamberlain Nwanne, assured that his team would be part of the NHRC team embarking on this year’s programme throughout the 36 states of the Federation including FCT.
He explained that Gift Health Plus Inc mission is to provide quality healthcare services to the vulnerable such as the Custodial inmates and in the society at large.
Mr. Nwanne said: “We believe that basic healthcare is a fundamental human rights. Our team will conduct health screening exercises in some selected custodial centers and carry out eye screening exercises not only on the inmates but also on the staff as well”.
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