#1Jan 6th, 2009
An inmate who dislocated a shoulder at the Regina Correctional Centre on Christmas Eve was given a cab voucher and sent to the hospital — by himself.
Source: --
REGINA -- An inmate who dislocated a shoulder at the Regina Correctional Centre on Christmas Eve was given a cab voucher and sent to the hospital — by himself.
“We usually send two staff with inmates to the hospital but because we were short-staffed one of the managers came in and signed a temporary authorized absence and gave him a cab voucher and sent him to the hospital on his own,” said a source who works in the correctional centre. “It’s never happened before. That contravenes all of our policies.”
Although the inmate returned to the centre in a cab, the source said, “It’s like playing Russian roulette.
“If staffing levels are below standard, they’re considered an emergent nature. What should happen is that you would lock a unit down and send one of the staff so there would be two staff taking him down and then you would continually phone until you found somebody or you would order someone in. This sets a precedent.”
An escort officer was willing to go but he wanted a second staff member to accompany him.
“(The prisoner’s) previous convictions would have dictated that he should never have been sent on his own,” said the source. “It should never have happened. It places everybody at risk because they’re incarcerated for a reason. It defies logic.”
Judy Orthner, director of communications for the Corrections, Public Safety and Policing Ministry, confirmed on Friday afternoon that an unaccompanied inmate was sent to a Regina hospital in a taxi on Dec. 24.
“He was treated and he did return to the correctional centre within about two hours,” Orthner said. “Typically it’s true that we would provide an escort to an inmate who was going for treatment to a hospital. In this case, it was an emergency but it wasn’t a life-threatening emergency. We do escorts but staff aren’t standing by to escort. It’s a case of rearranging corrections workers’ job duties, moving them around to make sure that various areas are covered to make an escort available.”
Orthner said the inmate was eligible for an authorized absence, which can occur after an inmate has served one-sixth or more of his sentence.
“When an inmate is eligible for an authorized absence he can basically use it for anything,” Orthner said. “If the inmate is a risk, then we do have a two-person escort to take them to a medical appointment. But in this case, because the inmate was already eligible for the absence, the decision was to let him seek medical treatment on his own.”
She added the inmate who was cabbed to the hospital was assessed and not considered a risk to take flight or to re-offend.
__________________________________________________ _____
What amazes me about this story is that he received health care, at a hospital,
Christmas Eve, in less than two hours...That's increadible!!!
Oh yeah...with the remand system, and delays for court time...everyone in that
prison has done 1/6th of their time before they even arrive there....funny.
