Sick inmates say emergency intercoms should be in cells

Inmates with chronic health issues at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility are raising concerns about the lack of intercom systems to alert correctional officers if they face a life-threatening situation in their cells. David Wade Smith, 43, and Chase Marinoff, 20, are inmates at the Halifax facility who have chronic health conditions and say they should have access to an emergency system if they fall ill.

Smith said he has heart arrhythmia that can require immediate attention, especially at night when he says his breathing occasionally has become irregular. Marinoff says he has Type 1 diabetes and fears losing consciousness due to his condition.

“If anything ever happened to my heart, I’d have no way of getting them (correctional officers) in here,” said Smith, who is incarcerated on a shoplifting charge.

The issue of a lack of intercoms has come up in connection with the 2014 death of Clayton Cromwell, a 23-year-old inmate who died in his cell of a methadone overdose.

Documents released to The Canadian Press under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act after a four-year process indicate that intercoms on the unit had been disconnected earlier without authorization, in contravention of the prison’s rules.

Some inmates told the Justice Department investigator who looked into the Cromwell case that this may have caused delays of 10 to 15 minutes in response, after inmates yelled at nearby cells where they believed intercoms were functioning only to find the intercoms weren’t working.