By Pola Del Giudice.
Family members of the inmates at the National Institute of Women’s Orientation (Inof) in Los Teques, capital of the state of Miranda, reported that an inmate is about to lose a breast, after waiting more than a year for medical attention to treat a severe infection.
According to the report published by high-profile prisoners’ rights NGO Una Ventana a la Libertad, family members of the inmate said that the prison director repeatedly denied her transfer to a hospital. It was not until this Wednesday that the board authorized her transfer to a medical practice
“She began to ooze from her breast, which became red, and she spent nights with fever and pain that were making her cry,” said one of her relatives.
Doctors specialized in the area of plastic surgery pointed out that the prisoner’s condition was due to a breast infection, resulting from the rupture of a breast implant that was not treated in time: however, the surgeon who attended the consultation only prescribed cleaning the wounds with vinegar without indicating treatment.
“It is not fair that these women, who are paying for some mistake, have neither medicines nor medical service when, for many years, this center had its doctors and treatments, and they did not even need to be transferred to the health centers,” emphasized Raima Bastidas, a lawyer.
Prisoners suffer from skin diseases.
Relatives of other inmates reported to El Pitazo that a large number of the inmates suffer from amebiasis and skin diseases, which are a result of the unhealthy state in which they live, because they do not have regular water service.
“Many of the girls are sick and are unable to send them to the doctor for treatment,” she added in the complaint.
The complainants said that the inmates are suffering from vomiting and diarrhea, the result of amebiasis, because “they neither drink drinking water nor are given the water we give them”.
“When we bring them cleaning products, they don’t give them to the inmates, because the directive says that they are donations for the prison and we make the sacrifice of bringing those implements so that they don’t live in a pigsty,” he concluded.
