Raphael Wolf
THE fight against the spread of tuberculosis (TB) among inmates at Pollsmoor Prison received a big boost with yesterday’s launch of a hi-tech digital chest X-ray machine at the facility.
The machine’s significance was highlighted by Correctional Services Department (DCS) regional commissioner Delekile Klaas and the TB/HIV Care Association’s chief executive, Harry Hauster, before they cut the ceremonial ribbon at the prison’s national health laboratory services section that houses the machine.
Hauster explained that South Africa had the third-highest number of TB infection cases in the world annually and that TB was the “leading cause of death in South Africa, despite the fact that it is a curable disease”.
“It is against this backdrop that the TB/HIV Care Association and the DCS are hosting this event to highlight and share the successes achieved in the TB/HIV programme in Pollsmoor. The machine that will be viewed today is the property of TB/HIV Care and is being placed in Pollsmoor to provide the X-ray service.”
Hauster said TB/HIV Care Association and the DCS had started providing a mobile X-ray service at the prison on December 18 last year.
The latest statistics indicate that in the Pollsmoor Management Area alone, a total number of 52 737 offenders were screened for TB between October 2013 and February this year, while the number of inmates that have been tested for TB was 7 125 in the same time period.
Klaas said: “It’s unacceptable in this day and age that people die from TB because of ignorance. TB can be cured with treatment.”
Hauster said that through funding from the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and malaria, the DCS and Health, the National Health Laboratory Service, NGOs such as TB/Aids Care Association, Right to Care and the Aurum Institute had implemented a TB screening service at correctional facilities countrywide.
The X-ray machine would make it possible for the results of tests on inmates to become available within hours.