One Inmate Dies Per Day Inside NBP Says Hospital Chief
ONE INMATE DIES/DAY – According to the New Bilib Prison’s (NBP) hospital chief, there is an average of one inmate that dies per day inside NBP.
During the Asia and Pacific Conference on Prison Health, Henry Fabro stated that it is more than a universally accepted computation. Fabro stated that the global standard is 0.2% of the population.
However, he emphasized that within Bilibid, the figure in at 0.5 percent. This would be equivalent to one inmate dying a day,
He added that the main reason for this could be blamed on the prison’s poorly equipped hospitals. Aside from this, there is also a low number of medical professionals.
Fabro lamented on the fact that there are merely 13 physicians attending to over 47,000 inmates. He also stated that needs to ask help from other agencies to compensate.
“Imagine, we only have four doctors who are going around four shifts. In fact, we are going to talk to the Secretary of Health to ask for doctors… Maybe, they could give us some”, said Fabro.
But, the hospital chief added that there was no unusual increase in deaths despite this. Although there were some recorded deaths inside NBP recently.
A human rights group pointed out that one of the reasons was the demolition of shanties within the prison. Another is their claim that inmates died due to dehydration.
According to an article from Philstar, BJMP medical officer Paul Borlongan said that the mortality rate per year since 2015 is at 300 to 800.
He added that compared with the international standard, the Philippines is not far off. However, he stressed that it is still unacceptable and that we can’t deny that some are dying.
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