Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

William Johnston on hunger strike since the 3rd of September

Brighton ABC | 01.10.2008 09:44 | Health | Repression | Social Struggles | World

The Scottish Executive recently announced that a consultative process was currently under way to consider passing all responsibility for health care facilities and treatment in Scottish prisons to the NHS. Inevitably the announcement was met by hostile opposition from medical staff presently employed directly by the Scottish Prison Service, although their argument against allowing prisoners access to NHS standards of care and treatment in fact makes a compelling case for the proposed reform.



On the 2nd of September the right-wing Mail On Sunday provided a public platform for an “inside source” who claimed to speak on behalf of Scottish Prison Service nursing staff and represent their view that prisoners as an inherently dangerous and predatory group should be denied contact with naive and vulnerable NHS nursing staff who faced the risk of manipulation and intimidation. The source claimed that only experienced prison nurses directly employed by the prison system and answerable to it had the necessary expertise to deal with “murders, rapists and psychopaths” who would invariably see NHS nurses and doctors as “fresh meat” to be used and abused. This de-humanising view of prisoners by people supposedly charged with a duty of medical care to people in prison epitomises a mentality that refuses to separate the role of medical staff from that of those who enforce control and punishment in prison. Such a view that considers even the role of prison medical staff to be subservient to the prime function of controlling and disciplining prisoners inevitably creates the potential for a serious abuse of human rights.

The use and abuse of medical power against prisoners has a long and disturbing history and is a compelling argument for the complete separation and independence of medical personnel from the apparatus of control and punishment in prison. The involvement of independent NHS staff in the medical care of prisoners therefore has an imperative far beyond the narrow economic consideration of the Scottish Executive and goes to the very heart of how sick prisoners are to be treated and cared for.

Within Scottish prisons at the moment the health care of prisoners is administered by staff who are absorbed into the whole coercive fabric and apparatus of the prison system and contaminated by an occupational mentality that views prisoners as something less than fully human, less deserving of standards of care accorded to ordinary patients on the outside. On occasion this close identification of prison medical staff with the institutional interests and collective enmity of guards towards prisoners has resulted in horrific examples of medical abuse and neglect; the medicalisation of prisoners protest and the application of the “liquid cosh” to subdue unmanageable prisoners are inevitable consequences of medical power used at the behest of an intrinsically repressive prison system.

At Glenochil Prison in Stirlingshire prisoner William Johnston has been on a hunger strike since the 3rd of September in protest over a denial of proper treatment for a crippling spinal condition and is currently receiving no treatment whatsoever. Labelled a “difficult” prisoner, Johnston has been denied painkillers and barred from access to the prison doctor because of what medical staff at the prison describe as a “bad attitude”. Johnston is simply left to suffer and his repeated requests to see the doctor ignored. His treatment typifies how medical neglect is used as a weapon to punish and victimize. Prisoners like William Johnston are always especially vulnerable in a system where medicine is inextricably linked to punishment and where prison hired doctors and nurses share the same institutional interests and prejudices as those more overtly employed to maintain prison “good order and discipline”.

Please send letters and cards of support to William Johnston (prison number 50541) and letters of protest to the Governor at HMP Glenochil, King O'Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire. FK10 3AD.

John Bowden 6729
HM Prison Glenochil
King O'Muir Road
Tullibody
Clackmannanshire
FK10 3AD

Brighton ABC

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. I hope many will join this protest — George Coombs

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech