We're led to the prison infirmary. It is manned by a nurse who takes care of hundreds of convicts, deportees, debtors and persons on trial and remand who have filled this building to the brim! He shares his ordeal with being unable to cater for inmates due to unavailable resources.
It's both fascinating and terrible that high blood pressure prevails in over half of inmates, even in younger folks with no risk factors. The infirmary here, however is unable to supply medications to manage these cases. At the Ekuasi Prison, skin infections are as common as pillows on beds.
In these parts, a capsule of Amoxicillin is such valuable that inmates would trade it for money, food or anything worthy, the nurse in-charge revealed.
Everyone here battles chronic body aches and insomnia. 74 year old Mensah is one of many other prisoners who has to survive without pain medications and his routine antihypertensives.
He lands heavily in the chair in front of me. He doesn't speak until I beckon. He's got a solemn look, a subdued demeanour and carries a dispirited spirit. He possesses the eye of a frog: huge and bulging, like they want to jump their way out of the man's head into a place where there's freedom. His shrill voice cannot emphasise enough how much meaningless life is, to him. Fatigue has drawn outlines of torture on his face. And age has the privilege of stamping its sagging mark on the supple contours of Mr. Mensah’s countenance.
It's his thirty-sixth year serving a life imprisonment sentence (since 1982). In the past three or four years, he has had only one visit and is abandoned by relatives. His pain is unflatteringly plain. His hopelessness is flying through the roof like his blood pressure readings.
Like basic healthcare, every prisoner too deserves a laugh.
“I said, don't trust anyone!. And anything can bring you here”.
I freak out. Reality has hit me like an airbag in a car crash. Kobby notices my fright and draws near to capture something for the records.
It's indeed true there are no guarantees in life. Not for the present, not for the future. We're all vulnerable humans, just as prone to questionable judgement as anyone else. We're no better. We're all prisoners. We're all Gentiles. It's just by grace.
Before Washington sat here, the radio in the corner had said the same thing: “Adom bi n'as? me mu, adom bi n’adi m’anim, adom bi n’adi m'akyi…”
Healthy Behind Bars is a prisons medical outreach program engineered to give basic healthcare to prisons and correctional centres across the country. Donations and enquiries can be made through 0548628978, 0240487945.
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