Government fails to explain hundreds of non-violent prison deaths despite evidence of TB epidemic

Although prison officials admitted Tuesday that 10 inmates have died of tuberculosis since November 15 at Guayaquil’s Litoral prison, they are tight-lipped about hundreds of other non-violent deaths at the prison. According to an official statement, the deaths of 551 inmates “may be from disease-related causes.”

Families of inmates in pavilion 7 of Guayaquil’s Litoral Prison claim 120 “very sick” men are going untreated for tuberculosis.

Throughout Ecuador’s prison system, a total of 760 inmates have died since January for non-violent reasons, the majority unexplained.

Early this week, national and Litoral prison officials refused to talk to two television networks about the sky-rocketing death toll. “We were told that they were not ready to discuss the deaths with us,” a program producer for Ecuavisa said. “When we asked if there is a tuberculosis epidemic at Litoral, we were told ‘no comment’.”

A prison medical worker who asked not to be identified told Ecuavisa reporters that all medical personnel are under orders “not to talk to anyone, especially the media” about the deaths. “The boss told us the government is embarrassed about the situation and wanted to keep it quiet until after the [referendum] election,” she said.

The worker said the vast majority of the non-violent deaths are the result of tuberculosis, adding that at least two medical staff members have been infected and others worry about contracting the disease.

A review of national prison documents by a Televistazo reporter showed “an almost crazy lack of clarity” about the deaths. “Many of the death reports give the cause as ‘yet to be determined’, others describe an ‘undefined illness’ and others says ‘inquiry continuing’,” Raul Marchan reported in a tv broadcast. “Less than 30 of the hundreds of deaths listed tuberculosis as the cause,” he said.

Luis Córdova, a researcher at Central University, called the deaths “inexcusable, indicating an official policy of planned neglect” of prisoners. “The conditions at Litoral are terrible and efforts have been made by those in charge to keep the fact hidden from the public,” he said. “When inmates become sick, they are often unable to walk before they are seen by medical personnel.”

Córdova, who has studied the country’s prison system for seven years, says he sees no interest from the government in improving conditions. “At Litoral, there are 7,000 prisoners crammed into a space designed for 4,900,” he says. “The facilities are unsanitary with broken sinks, showers and toilets, leaky ceilings, overrun with rats, with little effort at maintenance or custodial care.”

He adds: “The government is quick to blame the riots and killings on criminal gangs but if people could see the conditions inside Litoral and other prisons, they would understand another reason why prisoners are so prone to violence. The inmates have little reason not to be violent.”

The Committee of Relatives for a Dignified Life Inside and Outside Prisons holds daily vigils near Litoral, often displaying large posters of emaciated inmates. On Tuesday, one sign bore the question, “How can men survive on one bad meal a day?” Another sign read, “They took them in alive, we want them coming out alive.”

A man who identified himself as director of the committee, said Wednesday that there are “120 very sick inmates in pavilion 7 and we are told they have not been seen by doctors,” he said. “The prison director refuses to talk to us. We get all our information by cell phone from the prisoners.”

Late Thursday, following news reports of prison deaths Wednesday and Thursday morning, the Litoral director’s office issued a press statement that the Ministry of Health is “aware of the health concerns” and is studying the situation.

Appearing on a Thursday television news broadcast, Córdova claimed the government appears “totally unconcerned” with the inhumane conditions in the prisons. “There is no interest in making changes, only an interest in allowing the system to deteriorate, turning prisons into human warehouses resembling Dante Alighieri’s Ninth Circle.”