Pages: (97-103 )
Abstract
Background: There is evidence that Nigeria’s inmates still suffer from deteriorating quality of health. The health and wellbeing of prison inmates should matter as they can become valuable members of society following reformative processes. However, not much is known about what they perceive about healthcare received within the prison. Thus, this study assessed self-reported perceptions of inmates towards health service delivery. Methods: A cross sectional survey was conducted among 862 inmates and simple random sampling technique was used to select 350 inmates from two prisons in South-west Nigeria. The survey for the study was a self-administered questionnaire which was validated through a pretest where 10% of the study population was carried out in a prison in Alausa Lagos and a Cronbach alpha result of 0.791 was gotten. Collected data was analyzed using spss version 20.0, data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and results were presented in frequencies and percentages, bar charts and pie charts. Results: Inmates were mostly between 21 and 25 years old (26.6%) and had tertiary level education (29.2%). Respondents (95.2%) perceived the need for more financing of the system, 94% felt congested and 96.6% felt healthcare practitioners were insufficient while 97% felt the need for more health screenings to reduce spread of communicable diseases. Conclusion: the study revealed that the state of health care delivery services in the prison is in a deplorable condition, health challenges were faced by the inmate such as asthma, stooling, eye problem, skin rashes etc. Prison healthcare service needs urgent evaluation of services to address gaps for more efficient and effective health service delivery in order to promote better quality of health and protect inmates’ fundamental health rights
Keywords: Healthcare, Health system, Inmates, Nigeria,