Sexual assaults, after the latest events there is a risk of health paralysis in the Teramo prison: «Unsustainable situation»

There is great concern within the ASL after the two very recent sexual assaults suffered by a nurse and a doctor, in chronological order, inside the Castrogno prison (Teramo) by two inmates, both Tunisian. The consequences of these serious crimes committed, among other things, while the victims were there, in their workplace, could have consequences for all inmates because, as the general director of the healthcare company Maurizio Di Giosia is keen to underline: “Faced with these actions, we risk health paralysis inside the Castrogno prison.”

Inmate undresses in front of doctor and attacks officers: fear in Teramo prison

THE REASONS

And it’s not hard to imagine the reasons. «It is already difficult to find healthcare personnel who want to go to work in prison – explains Di Giosia -, if these things also happen it is clear that the situation becomes unsustainable». In this regard, therefore, he too is asking for intervention at ministerial level to at least pay attention to the situation and not reach the point of a “critical welfare issue”.

The two episodes both occurred within a few days of each other and always with Tunisian prisoners who were protagonists of the sexual harassment who attacked the female healthcare staff of the local health authority seconded to Castrogno, managing to grope the two professionals who in the meantime they were working on the medical examination that had been requested for them. A clear alarm bell that cannot go unheeded also because, as the prison police union representatives themselves clarify, “it is the first time they have occurred”.

«In the past – says Giuseppe Pallini, provincial secretary of Sappe – there had been physical attacks on health workers and verbal threats, but never violence of this kind. The problem is that due to overcrowding, prisoners no longer even serve the full disciplinary sanctions and this leads them to think they can do whatever they want. In our country, among other things, the prison is open and instead special surveillance would be necessary for inmates deemed dangerous for prison safety”. The lurking danger is that female healthcare workers could actually be exposed to sexual violence within prison. And this, now, after the recent events that occurred and reported by the prison police themselves, is another topic that is added to the long list of problems that afflicts Castrogno. At the moment the nurse and the doctor have not yet filed any complaint against the two inmates, but the investigation was started anyway after the penitentiary informed the prosecutor’s office about the attacks on public officials which occurred in the infirmary in front of witnesses who fortunately they immediately managed to block the Tunisians in both cases and take them back to their cells, to the shock and fear of those who experienced those moments.

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Read the full article at
The messenger