Cape Town - Conditions at Pollsmoor Prison that pose a risk to the health of inmates came under the spotlight in the Jeremy Sias case.
Sias was acquitted of the murder of Meghan Cremer but is appearing in the Western Cape High Court on charges of theft, defeating the ends of justice and robbery.
Sias’s lawyer is trying to secure his release, pointing to the conditions at the prison.
The acting head of facilities at Pollsmoor Prison, Wiseman Kanzi, pointed to the Department of Health as the reason why health issues that could be fatal to inmates are sometimes not attended to.
Kanzi said there had been occasions where Pollsmoor would depend on Hope Street Clinic in order to send inmates for dental care.
In trying to prove the dire conditions Sias was under during his imprisonment in Pollsmoor and how the 30-year-old father of four was in pain during his trial – due to bad healthcare at the facility – his lawyer sought answers from the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) official.
Kanzi explained that while they appointed nursing staff, doctors, social workers and psychologists, these designations were separate from psychiatry and dental services.
“We get a dentist or a psychiatrist allocated to us by the Department of Health and we share the person among five centres,” Kanzi said.
The reasons for this, according to Kanzi, were specified by “health legislation”.
When asked what he had done to rectify the issue of dentistry at the facility, Kanzi said: “We didn’t have a dentist for quite some time because we didn’t have a dental facility, which included a prescribed dental chair. We created a space and converted it into a dental facility and got a new dental chair.”
He explained when the resident dentist informed them of his departure, they started sending out word for a new dentist.
“Part of what has been the problem is that it has also been very, very difficult to source those professions, and I don’t want to use strong words and say the Department of Health was not co-operating because we have constant engagements and meetings with the professor that is in charge. They were also having their own bureaucratic challenges at the Department of Health as well,” Kanzi said.
When Judge Elizabeth Baartman asked him whether in his view the problem was money or bureaucracy, he said: “It’s bureaucracy … it has been a bit of a frustrating process. One person who is assisting you would just hit a brick wall and then we’re almost like (there’s) a lack of assistance.
“I said how we wish at a point that high court judges like yourself could bring this maybe to the attention of the very senior leadership in the Department of Health in the Western Cape, so that he can assist us.”
Kanzi went on to defend his colleagues.
“The other thing that I want to bring to your attention is, sometimes, the mostly junior officials that are doing the day-to-day responsibilities.
“Sometimes they get shocked when they hear they are being subpoenaed in court because they think they are in trouble, only to find out they are actually invited to assist the courts and other colleagues with issues that are not clear.
“Sometimes being lambasted by a community as if we are spending money where it should not be, to make sure that we take care of them where we can … But their complaints, requests, health matters, I take it highly seriously,” Kanzi said.
Sias will return to court in April.