ST JOHN’S, Antigua – One of the six troubled teenage girls currently being housed in prison reportedly had a meltdown and was rushed to hospital over the weekend.
Sources said prison authorities called Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to take the child to the hospital after she had been screaming and throwing tantrums for an extended period.
However, reports are that hospital officials found nothing physically wrong with the child. Hence, she was released from Mount St John’s Medical Centre and sent back to prison.
She is scheduled to have a session with a psychiatrist today.
The 15-year-old, whose mother is before the court for ill treating her, is said to be off her medication that treats Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a condition she was diagnosed with in 2005.
Also, she has not been receiving counselling that is required as, according to her mother, the treatment is unaffordable. In addition to having ADHD, the school-girl is also dyslexic.
The child was recently put in jail after her mother admitted burning her with an iron in anger after allegedly seeing a sex tape she apparently took part in.
The mother is to be sentenced next month.
Currently, there is no other secure facility apart from the prison where girls can be housed for protection and kept off the streets.
That situation is likely to change shortly as Cabinet pledged to set up a centre to cater for the aforementioned troubled teen and five other girls who are also currently being housed at Her Majesty’s Prison in St John’s. That revelation came last week from National Security Minister Dr Errol Cort.
He said the facility will also accommodate the five troubled teenaged boys currently living at the Boys’ Training School.
hold on here… am i reading this correctly? abused children… victims of crimes, are being incarcerated in an overcrowded, dilapidated, medieval prison… to protect them?! WOW.
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