Cape Town – Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola has dismissed reports that prisoners at Pollsmoor Prison were forced to suffer without the services of a dentist for almost a year.
Responding to Parliamentary questions from IFP MP Themba Msimang, Lamola said that Correctional Services did not have any dentist appointed on a permanent basis.
“In ensuring the availability of dental-care services to inmates, a service level agreement or contract is entered into with the provincial department of health and/or with individual private dentist(s) on an annual basis.
“Inmates at Pollsmoor Correctional Centre had access to dental services provided through a visiting sessional dentist on a weekly basis, and when the services of the visiting dentist were not available during the Covid-19 pandemic period, inmates that were requiring those services were referred to the provincial department of health’s local facilities, such as the department of health’s facilities in the same district as the correctional facility,” he said.
Lamola also said other correctional facilities in the region where service level agreements or contracts could not be entered into with private dentists, the local department of health facilities were utilised for referring inmates requiring dental services in addressing their respective dental-care needs.
“This arrangement is facilitating the humane treatment of inmates by ensuring accessibility of continual dental health-care services.”
Asked whether his department had any plans in place to employ an increased number of dental practitioners, Lamola said the department did not employ dentists on a permanent basis as this category of health professionals were specialists and were not available or catered for in the department’s organisational structure.
“In facilitating that the inmate population has continual access to dental-care services... measures have been put in place to ensure that the health of the inmate population is not compromised.
“Department of Correctional Services regions have entered into various service level agreements or contracts with either the provincial departments of health for the delivery of dental health-care services to the inmates on sessional basis depending on the identified needs, or where capacity in the department of health is limited, service level agreements have been entered into with individual private dentists to render.”
Cape Times