Women, babies in Keffi prison get clinic

The non profit Earthspring International has opened a clinic to care for women and girls imprisoned at Keffi Old Prison in Nasarawa State.
 Earthspring executive director, Rev Fr Victor Nyoroh, said the clinic would target “vulnerable women, infants, nursing and expectant mothers to get them antenatal care, safe delivery postnatal, immunisation and nutrition even though they are in prison.”
“I believe that every effort such as this will go a long way to contribute to the realisation of Sustainable Development Goal 3: ensuring healthy lives and promotion of well being for all ages.”
Keffi Prison is the third detention centre where Earthspring has opened a maternity unit, amidst concerns about women who are detained pregnant or get pregnant after imprisonment and “infants who circumstantially have to be born or raised within the prison walls,” according to Nyoroh.
Keffi Prison had a health room which was empty of medical supplies and locked until this intervention.
Officials collected N100 each from staff and inmates each month to buy drugs.
Earthspring and its partners renovated and stocked the clinic with medical supplies, from drugs and examination screen to mosquito nets and testing equipment, in a room formerly designated as clinic but empty and shut.
“We are in need of all this support,” admitted Ekanem Ekwere, controller of prisons under Nasarawa State command.
An earlier inspection team was saddened because facilities at the clinic were inadequate for the number of inmates, Ekwere noted.
Keffi Prison houses up to 40 women among its 204 inmates in a facility built for only 160.
All prisons in Nasarawa State have a combined capacity for 898 inmates, but hold 1690 — 500 of them convicts, all others on remand or awaiting trial.
Tessy Effa, country director for Champions for Change, which supported opening the clinic, stressed need for institutions to assist the prison sustain use of the clinic for inmate health care.
Federal Medical Centre, Keffi has pledged it would take referrals and emergencies from Keffi Old Prison.