Sunday's episode of Special Assignment, produced by Adel van Niekerk, investigates why a sick prisoner with an easily treatable medical condition developed life-threatening health complications in prison.
In
2010, after allegedly struggling for almost a year to get proper medical
treatment for painful hemorrhoids inside Johannesburg Prison’s Medium
B-section, inmate Lungisa Livingstone Jadula says he was eventually sent to the
Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto where, he claims that without his
knowledge or consent, a part of his colon was removed and the remainder left
hanging outside of his body.
The hospital has since admitted that they have lost
his 2010 medical records.
After
his surgery, Jadula was sent back to a communal prison cell where he has had to
fight off deadly infections in an overcrowded, unsanitary environment. His lawyer,
Austin Okeke, says it has been an uphill battle to get his client the on-going
medical treatment he requires.
In
2012, Special Assignment produced two
exposés on sick prisoners that, similar to the case of Jadula, revealed a critical
breakdown in a working relationship between prisons and state
hospitals.
The implementation of new medical parole laws in 2012 was meant
to smooth the road for sick inmates like Jadula, but prison and health
authorities continue to shift the blame on to each other.
Medico-legal
expert Adele van der Walt, says that prisoners, despite having their movements
restricted, have the constitutional right to proper medical care. In light of
this, Special Assignment asks who is responsible for the timeous and proper medical treatment
of sick inmates.
