The Sunday Mail
Veronica Gwaze
As the tall metal and heavily padlocked gates of Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison Psychiatric Unit swing open, one is greeted by a riveting odour and a soul-shattering sight.
The sight of mentally derailed and dirty inmates clad in tattered khakhi gabardines and some discoloured red and white striped jerseys inject grief down the spine.
The emotionless facial expressions make it vivid that the bunch look forward to nothing.
To them, the future perhaps holds nothing good. They just view life as a clock counting down to their last breath.
And yet Gladys Makora has been waking up to face this outcast group every day for more than a decade now. At 43, she is the principal correctional officer and the matron of the prison’s psychiatric unit and she has, since 2006, been working with mentally ill inmates.
They refer to them as mental patients.
These patients are offenders who are diagnosed to be mentally unstable and as such, they are not sentenced.
Instead, they undergo treatment behind bars and upon gaining stability, they are discharged.
For 13 years, she has to see to it that the mental patients have eaten, bathed and taken their medication, among other things. Believing it is her calling, Makora reckons that at first it was tough working with the mental patients. However, she has grown to love her job over the years.
“It was tough, especially the first days but the more you interact with them, you begin to understand them more and over time, a bond is created.
“At times their problems even affect you. You share feelings and as such, some of their situations may make you feel depressed too,” narrated the matron.
When one of her patients is in a difficult situation, Makora is usually psychologically affected and at home, she retreats into her soul-searching mode. Some of the mental patients she has to work closely with committed serious crimes like murder, with some facing up to five counts.
She remembers one patient who stayed under her care for nearly five years after he was detained for murdering a fellow villager. The victim was chopped, cooked and eaten back in 2009.
In 2012, she confronted probably her worst moment to date when she was still the psychiatric unit’s sister-in-charge.
“A new patient had just been brought in and he pretended like he could not do anything for himself. So when it was time for a meal, he lay there motionless, acting like he could not talk or wake up, let alone walk.
“I persuaded him to go and eat with the others but he remained stubborn and the more I tried to persuade, the more furious he became. With rage, he agitatedly flew out of bed and charged towards me with bloodshot eyes full of anger. I felt like it was my end but thank God, the other patients came to my rescue,” she narrated with teary eyes.
On that day, Makora made up her mind that she was quitting her job. It took her family to convince her not to quit. Years later, the matron now feels dealing with mental patients is her calling and she has grown to love her job.
Currently she attends to 301 mental patients housed at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison psychiatric unit. Of the 301, 85 are detained mental patients while the others are criminal mental patients. Criminal mental patients are those still appearing in court, waiting for medical confirmation that they are guilty but have a mental illness.
Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison medical officer, Dr Blessing Dhoropa, expressed concern over the numbers housed at the facility.
The psychiatric unit’s carrying capacity should be 150 and with the current numbers, the doctor said more should be done to de-congest the facility.
Dr Dhoropa said the over-populated psychological unit is rocked with medication shortages, which disrupts the patient’s healing process. Speaking at the Institute of People Management of Zimbabwe’s medication hand-over ceremony recently, Dr Dhoropa said there have been records of mental patients becoming rowdy and injuring each other in the process due to shortage of medication.
The IPMZ is a professional association which specialises in personnel and training of human resources.
According to Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison consumption, the donation will last both the male and female units for two months.
“We are grateful for this donation, which according to our consumption will be enough for both the male and female psychiatric units for two months,” Dr Dhoropa said.
“These are a delicate group of people and should have their medication available at all times because they are difficult to control.
At times, the psychiatric unit drug shortages can go on for more than a month and in some rare cases, prison officers are attacked.
Dr Dhoropa, concerned with the escalating numbers of mental prison patients, said overpopulation within the prison facility also fuels outbreaks of diseases such as typhoid, cholera and tuberculosis. Recently, there was a chicken pox outbreak.
“Apart from that, we have clothing challenges and with winter as it is, it’s sad that they do not have warm clothing. We recognise their rights and we want to provide them with things such as hospital uniforms and warm clothing but we are failing. Therefore we call upon well-wishers to come forth and help us,” he said.
With some patients having to stay at the penal facility for up to eight years, Dr Dhoropa revealed that some of them are abandoned by their relatives. He said society frowns upon former jailbirds, let alone mental health former prisoners.
At times the Chikurubi Maximum Security’s Psychiatric Unit has to transfer mental patients who would have been abandoned by their families to Engutsheni Mental Hospital in Bulawayo, whilst some families ask ZPCS to confine their relatives for life.
