00:00The investigation continues into the disappearance of a master key that opens
00:05the riot gate or main gate to all the cells at one area of the Oruka women's
00:11prison. According to General Secretary of the Prisons Officers Association Lester
00:16Logie, the locks will now have to be changed. He tells TV6 the key has not
00:22been recovered and the probe is in the preliminary stages. Logie notes that
00:29while these incidents occur occasionally, they are still very serious
00:33and very costly. A statement from the prison service last week stated that
00:39immediate steps were initiated in consultation with the prison's locksmith
00:43to implement countermeasures to secure the gates to prevent any breach of
00:48security at the facility. However, Mr. Logie says the current situation remains
00:54worrisome and he wants the authorities to act now.
01:24He further tells us of a pigeon infestation causing much unease among
01:43officers and placing the health and safety of the association members at
01:47risk. Even noting that a dead pigeon was discovered in the vent at the welfare
01:54division, resulting in an officer being sent for medical attention. Logie says
01:59the administration of the prisons needs to implement health surveillance, which
02:04he says is required by law but lacking within the service. OSHA has identified
02:11several breaches throughout the various prisons and the government is saying
02:16that they have no money. The prison administration is telling us that the
02:20government has no money, so we have to look at how do they prioritize these
02:25resources that they give to the prison. I believe the OSHA needs to be beefed up
02:32in terms of the penalties because it comes like we are reporting Caesar to
02:38Caesar and the penalty is almost minimal for breaches. Logie laments the dire
02:44straits officers are forced to operate under. He says the camera system has
02:50collapsed and contraband is being tossed into the facility over the walls
02:54from connections in the streets as a result. He tells of stolen water pumps
03:00leaving prisons officers and inmates at the maximum security prison filling and
03:05carrying buckets of water all day. He adds that lighting and visibility have
03:12also been compromised. I went on a search in MSP in December and if I
03:21know you and you are 15 feet away from me, I cannot make you out and officers
03:26working in those conditions and it's not only one division, it's several divisions
03:32like that and today it hasn't been fixed and the generator, if the
03:38electricity goes, gates opening on its own, everything shut down and we don't
03:43have a functioning generator. Up to today a prison with 1,800 inmates. He also
03:49reveals that due to the unhealthy conditions there exists a sick leave
03:55problem among officers. We have things like tuberculosis, that is rampant in
04:02Port of Spain, it has been there. I would have taken an inmate, the inmate collapsed
04:0926 years old. We thought he had some cancer or some kind of thing.
04:14Before long he couldn't walk and they were doing tests on him. We carried him to
04:20St. James in the cancer place only to find out his TB had. The General
04:27Secretary tells us in 2024 the lives of 25 active prison officers were lost due
04:34to various ailments. Nicole M Romany, TV6 News.
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