The transfer of some 50 mentally ill prisoners from St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre to Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre in Kingston has swelled the ranks of inmates diagnosed with mental disorders housed at the latter to more than 200. And forensic psychiatric expert Dr Myo Kyaw Oo is warning that it will mean more pressure for staff there.

The disclosure regarding the transfer emerged last Thursday when Dr Oo, who is a sessional consultant psychiatrist with the Department of Correctional Services, took the stand in the trial of Lieutenant Kyodia Burnett, the former Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) physiotherapist who stabbed his attorney-at-law wife Nordraka Williams Burnett to death in December 2018.

Dr Oo had been asked by lead attorney for Burnett’s defence team Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, King’s Counsel, to give the location of the George Davis Centre (a section of the Tower Street facility which houses mentally ill inmates) and to say the number of inmates there at that time.

“Are there over 200 inmates at Tower Street diagnosed with mental disorders?” Samuels-Brown asked.

“The number is not correct, last week Friday the number was 157,” Dr Oo replied.

Samuels-Brown, however, countered that 20 mentally ill inmates had been transferred to the facility from St Catherine in early February with plans for another 40 to be moved.

Dr Oo replied while he was yet to be officially informed as to the final number, the rationale given for the transfers was “a plan to refurbish the current infrastructure where the mentally ill are kept at the St Catherine prison”.

Asked, however, by Samuels-Brown if the number of persons being transferred into his care with mental disorders would “impact the ability to care for the grouping overall”, Dr Oo said, “If the numbers increase, definitely yes.”

That admission came after an earlier acknowledgement by the forensic psychiatric expert that while the death of former inmate Noel Chambers in 2020 triggered vast changes in the mental health services available to mentally disordered offenders at the Tower Street facility, the services there are still not up to his standard and the environment it offers can only qualify as 50 per cent therapeutic.

Under further questioning by the attorney, Dr Oo admitted that even though the section of the facility dedicated to housing mentally ill inmates (George Davis Centre) has been refurbished, it still does not qualify as a “therapeutic environment”.

He admitted under further probe from Samuels-Brown that the location of the centre at the facility made it possible for other inmates to find and abuse the mentally disordered.

Meanwhile, the Observer was also informed that another group of inmates will be transferred from Tower Street to the St Catherine facility to facilitate renovations of the sections where they were held.

“So them a go fix up [Tower Street section] and send them man over Spanish Town…so dat mean [it] a go empty dat dem can fix it up fi send dem back deh, a some building and refurbishing a gwaan,” the source said.

Last Thursday, Dr Oo told the court that the Department of Correctional Services now has five sessional psychiatrists who cover all the institutions, including the juvenile facilities.

He said while there had only been one registered psychiatric nurse from 2003 to 2020, the situation changed after the death of Chambers as there was a reform of psychiatric services inside the correctional department and more psychiatrists were employed.

According to Dr Oo, to date the department has four permanently employed consultant psychiatrists, three sessional psychiatrists, one psychiatric nurse mental health officer, one senior psychiatric nurse, three psychologists, and one sessional psychologist.

The doctor said for the first time four civilian psychiatric nursing aides were permanently employed and 20 correctional officers trained as psychiatric nursing aides. He said the department also employs sessional pharmacists and a dental surgeon.

The 2011 Death Penalty Project’s report on prison conditions in Jamaica, in describing the George Davis Centre at that time, said it had a large garden in which the inmates grow produce, and its own dormitory. It said the conditions at the centre “are far superior to those at” the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre.

The two facilities are the two largest correctional centres in Jamaica with the St Catherine entity being the older of the two. Both prisons have maximum security status.