Too many inmates, many of whom are hospitalized outside the prison, too few officers and a system that "cannot hold up anymore". This is the situation that the Uta prison is experiencing, reported by the Si.NAPPe union, which is raising the alarm.
"There are currently four inmates hospitalized in an external care facility," reads a union statement, "where 32 police officers are employed to ensure safety, covering shifts 24 hours a day. In this way, any type of work organization is lost, with personnel who see all subjective rights, holidays and rest days revoked. A system like this can no longer sustain and move forward." Added to this would be "the psycho-physical conditions of the personnel that cannot sustain for much longer. The immediate opening of the hospital detention unit is needed, ready but never delivered."
But also causing concern is the number of mentally unstable prisoners and inmates in Sardinian prisons, which "has reached unacceptable numbers, with a dramatic increase in hospital admissions, and too often with attacks on Penitentiary Police personnel and health workers, as they are forced to work in conditions of extreme discomfort as the prisoners or inmates are hospitalized in hospital wards together with ordinary patients".
As announced by the regional secretary of Si.NAPPe Raffaele Murtas, «we will ask for an urgent meeting with the President of the Sardinia Region and with the Health Councilor, we are willing to take to the streets and maintain a garrison under the region until they solve the problem».
(Unioneonline/vf)
