Ill prisoners routinely denied healthcare in Punjab.

Byline: Ashraf Javed

LAHORE -- Hundreds of prisoners languishing in jails across Punjab have been suffering from chronic diseases including TB, hepatitis, asthma and AIDS. Many of them badly need proper medical care but they have been left to die in prisons.

A provincial official on Saturday told The Nation that roughly more than 3,000 inmates, mostly under trial prisoners, have been suffering from life-threatening diseases in different district jails. He also admitted that dozens of prisoners die in jails every year in Punjab because they are never provided proper medical treatment by experts due to one or other reason.

As a matter of fact, ordinary prisoners are shifted to main hospitals from jail only when their condition gets worse. A few health facilities are available in some jails where medical officers are unable to treat all chronic patients.

In May, two under trial prisoners died in Lahore jails. Muhammad Ahmad and Yasir Ali were rushed to hospitals after their condition deteriorated, police said. Ahmad was arrested by North Cantonment police in connection with an armed robbery case and Yasir Ali had been jailed in a drug peddling case, registered against him with the Kot Lakhpat Police Station.

Ahmad, a chronic TB patient, was admitted to the Gulab Devi Hospital only after his condition got deteriorated in Lahore's Camp Jail. Yasir was given medical treatment in jail hospital but he expired.

Majority of the ordinary prisoners belong to poor families and they cannot afford costly treatment in public or private hospitals. Because of rampant corruption in Punjab's prisons, the jail officials treat inmates according to their status.

'If you are poor, you will not be served proper food in the prison. But if you can offer bribe, you can enjoy all facilities there,' said Muhammad Zaman who spent several years in Faisalabad district jail.

Many prisoners in Punjab's overcrowded jails are suffering from different diseases due to lack of proper food, health facilities, and poor sanitary conditions.

Rights activists say all the prisons in Punjab are overcrowded and complaints of torture on inmates are quite common. The prisoners are routinely abused and humiliated in jails. They also said that a large number of prisoners had been suffering from various diseases but they are denied proper medical treatment.

More than 48,000 prisoners including 800 women have been languishing in different Punjab jails. Only, the murder suspects make 42 percent...