Police are investigating reports of discriminatory treatment of patients at Mount Carmel Hospital’s forensic unit.
An investigation is under way
The request was made by Prisons director Abraham Zammit, following complaints from nurses and warders over how inmates are treated.
A spokesman from the Home Affairs Ministry confirmed that Mr Zammit had forwarded the complaints to police in early September.
“An investigation is under way,” the spokesman said.
Mount Carmel’s forensic unit houses convicts whose state of mind is deemed unsuited to a prison environment. There are currently 53 male and five female inmates, with each group housed in separate buildings.
Discriminatory patient treatment claims first appeared in the Sunday newspaper Illum two weeks ago, with a 19-year-old woman claiming male inmates had it far better than their female counterparts.
Men were allowed television sets, could venture outdoors and smoke as many cigarettes as they liked – all things denied to women, the interviewee claimed.
She also complained about cramped, unbearably hot living conditions and said meals were so cold she had resorted to buying her own food.
“We’re only allowed to stretch our legs by walking up and down the corridor for an hour and they let us out in turns,” the inmate said.
The ministry spokesman said forensic unit inmates were allowed out of their cells for three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon.
“However, within the same section a situation might arise where due to specific, possibly medical, circumstances that apply only to particular inmates of either sex, consultants or doctors may order that said inmates remain within their cells for a longer period,” the spokesman said.
Such measures are medical recommendations and not punishments, he stressed.
The €370,000 forensic unit at Mount Carmel Hospital was opened in 2005 to specifically cater for prisoners – either convicted or awaiting trial – in need of psychiatric treatment.
Originally intended to house just 17 inmates, the unit has been stretched to accommodate the 58 men and women it currently hosts.
Disgraced former chief justice Noel Arrigo, convicted of having accepted a bribe to reduce a jail term, spent his 22-month prison term among the residents there.