- Jails aren’t medical facilities, but they’re still tasked with providing a degree of inmate healthcare needs. Saskatchewan’s auditor Judy Ferguson found that correctional centres provide a wide array of healthcare challenges.
“They often are people that don’t go to their doctors regularly. They may have mental health and addictions issues. They may have other potentially infectious disease issues too, so they’re a higher risk population,” Ferguson said.
The closed environment can increase the risk of infectious disease spreading if proper care is not received, which can have broader consequences.
“When somebody is released back into society that you’re not putting society at risk, frankly those individuals have the same right to healthcare. The same respect that we have the right to healthcare,” Ferguson continued.
Saskatchewan’s four adult custody correctional centres formed the basis of the auditor’s report.
READ MORE: Sask. auditor finds mental health care demands outpace resources
They all have professional nurses on hand from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. However, these nurses aren’t getting all the support they need for the job.
“They’re the ones that are there all day. We found the orientations for them were really too brief, too limited to equip them for their job,” Ferguson said. “It’s a position with quite a high turnover of individuals.”
Complicating this are the high needs of inmates. In addition to generally being from more vulnerable populations, correctional centres have high rates of addiction.
“They don’t have good, clear policies and directives that relate to dealing with drug addicted inmates that come into their system,” Ferguson said.
Ministry of Corrections and Policing spokesperson Drew Wilby said that they are working with the Ministry of Health to develop therapeutic care for those that need it. Of Saskatchewan’s roughly 1,800 inmates, Wilby said 25 to 30 per cent have diagnosed mental illness.
“Undiagnosed, it’s significantly more than that. From an addictions perspective we’re probably talking anywhere from 75 to 90 per cent of our population is addicted to something, whether that be alcohol, substances or drug of some other nature,” he said.
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Justice critic Nicole Sarauer is calling for fast action on addressing this need.
“Access to psychology services is important so that inmates can address the issues that may have gotten them into jail in the first place, so they’re not re-offending,” she said.
“It’s a problem in terms of our recidivism rates. Frankly, it costs us money to have more people in jails if you want to think about it that way.”
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Police agencies across the province have linked recent increases in property crime to drug use and addiction.
Wilby said that concerns raised by the auditor do not come as a surprise. The ministry is accepting all of the auditor’s recommendations. Work will be done with the health ministry to achieve all recommendations in a timely manner.
Getting all first aid training up to standard will be the easiest to achieve. All workers are required to have up-to-date training, but 35 per cent of one unnamed centre’s staff had out of date training.
Wilby said medium term strategies are expected to be announced in the fall or winter.
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