CROWDED PRISONS TOP CRITIC'S HARSH LIST

Liberal Government Blasted On Services

Quebec's prisons are so overcrowded, inmates are bunking on
mattresses in gyms and classrooms.

Too many seniors in long-term care centres are being kept in adult
diapers, given one bath a week and fed cold meals because of staff shortages.

The province's automobile-insurance agency is still dragging its feet
on settling cases.

And that's not all.

In a scathing 300-page report tabled in the National Assembly,
provincial ombudsman Raymonde Saint-Germain blasts the Liberal
government and many of its agencies for their lousy performance last
year, honing in above all on the chronic overcrowding of Quebec's 18 prisons.

In surprise spot inspections of six detention centres,
Saint-Germain's team found the overcrowding situation has moved
beyond just two prisoners to a cell - which has become the norm - to
detainees sleeping on thin mattresses on the floor, often in
classrooms and gymnasiums or in temporary holding pens not equipped
with sanitary facilities.

"The operating capacity of these establishments was attained long
ago," Saint-Germain said. "The overpopulation problem persists.
Socio-sanitary conditions in detention centres continue to erode."

As an example, the prison in Amos has a capacity of 86; it currently
holds 102 prisoners. The prison in Saint-Jerome is running at
120-per-cent overcapacity. On any given day, 4,000 people are behind
bars in Quebec while the official capacity of the prison system is 3,767.

Overcrowding and mass transfers of inmates are believed to be at the
root of at least two small prison disturbances in Quebec in the last few weeks.

Saint-Germain said the typical prison management staff's day is spent
shuffling prisoners from one part of the prison to another, not only
to feed them but also to keep them from attacking each other.

Resources are almost all going toward security, the report said. Gone
by the wayside are drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs because
of a lack of space to hold them. That is a recipe for disaster
because 39 per cent of prisoners have drug and alcohol abuse
problems, Saint-Germain noted. The same applies to programs to curb
conjugal violence before prisoners hit the streets again.

Even when prisoners 89 per cent are men and the average age is 35 -
start a help program, they often get transferred to another prison
because of space reasons and do not get to complete it, the report
said. Prisoners are increasingly filing complaints about their living
conditions, the report added.

Referring to government plans to reform the correctional system,
Saint-Germain said: "It is both paradoxical and worrisome that, in
parallel with the reform's entry into force, access to programs and
activities inside facilities is increasingly restricted. There is a
discrepancy between the principles of the reform and the reality."

It didn't take long for the blame game to start, with Parti Quebecois
public security critic Jacques Cote blasting the government for its
negligence. He called for immediate action.

"Since the Liberal government took power, it has known about the
problems and done nothing concrete to correct it," Cote said. "Prison
overcrowding is real and getting worse."

But Philippe Archambault, a spokesperson for Public Security Minister
Jacques Dupuis, steered the blame back on the PQ. It closed five
prisons during the 1990s as a cost-cutting measure, he said, and now
the Liberals are trying to catch up, with plans to spend $55 million
this year renovating prisons in the Montreal area.

By 2011, the government also will open five prisons, creating an
additional 751 spaces, Archambault said.

He argued there is another reason for overcrowding: The government
has been tougher on gang and biker crime, which means there are more
people in jail and less access to early parole.

But Saint-Germain had other bad news for the government in the health
and social services area. There, again, she found a shortage of
resources in centres for long-term senior care.

Saint-Germain said her inspectors turned up many cases of elderly
patients getting only one bath a week and being fed cold meals on a
regular basis because of a lack of organization.

Workers are so harried, she said, they are forced to put heavy-care
patients into adult diapers, even though, with a little help, they
could make it to the bathroom on their own.

Urgent action is required, she said, because no human should be
treated in this way.

"Adult diapers have not become the norm, but we are seeing way too
many," Saint-Germain said at a news conference after releasing her
report. "It is related directly to a lack of resources."

"The personnel is as unhappy about this as anyone," added deputy
ombudsman Pierre-Paul Veilleux in a telephone interview later.

"They say they don't have the time. It is a situation I deplore
because they are getting these when they, in fact, just want to go to
the bathroom."

Saint-Germain said in many of the health-care complaints, a simple
reorganization would suffice to correct things.

Complaints about the health and social services system represented
the largest single chunk of the 20,600 complaints handled last year
by the ombudsman - a discreet, but independent agency accountable
exclusively to the National Assembly.

The other government agency that takes it in the teeth is the Societe
de l'assurance automobile du Quebec, or SAAQ, whose performance was
again judged unsatisfactory by the ombudsman despite a pledge to
clean up its act two years ago.

Of the 361 complaints about the agency received by the ombudsman last
year, 45 per cent - almost one in two - proved to be founded.

Accident victims, for example, are still waiting on average more than
three months for the SAAQ to issue medical opinions, which represents
a long time to live without an income Saint-Germain said.

She has not observed "any major improvement" in wait times in two
years and things seem to be getting worse, Saint-Germain said. The
financially strapped agency also plans to reduce its personnel by 10
per cent to balance its books.

"Victims not only suffer the trauma of the accident, but also severe
strain to their financial and family lives," the report said. "Who
can financially support such a waiting time? And why should anyone be
expected to?"

The SAAQ is also slow to acknowledge its mistakes, she said. In cases
where the accident took place while the motorist was working, the
agency tries to "pass the buck" to the worker's compensation board, she said.

Saint-Germain Discovers More Oversights

Other blunders uncovered by provincial ombudsman Raymonde Saint-Germain's team:

- - Patients in psychiatric care hospitals have suffered under the
province's smoking ban.

Because they are not allowed to leave the building, nicotine patches
have been the only alternative. Saint-Germain said many patients were
forced onto the patch without their consent and without a check of
their medical history.

- - Hospitals need to better respect the rights of people with mental
health problems. Patients are held against their will in solitary
confinement too often.

- - Complaints reveal a continuing major shortfall between demand for
home-care services and the ability of local health and social
services establishments to provide them.