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| Canadian attacks using urine, feces increasing |
| By The Edmonton Sun |
| Published: 05/08/2006 |
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WINNIPEG, CANADA - It's the latest kind of assault by prisoners. Kevin Grabowsky, prairie president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, said inmates are hurling bodily fluids - feces, urine and blood - at officers, or even stabbing them with needles filled with the stuff. He said these attacks have grown over the past three years from once or twice a month to once or twice a week in some institutions. But the incidents aren't nationally tracked or recorded, something the union leader says stems from Correctional Services Canada's (CSC) refusal to treat them as attacks. Grabowsky said the threat poses a great risk to officers, who don't know what infectious diseases an inmate has due to health privacy laws. The union is lobbying to have inmates tested for communicable diseases and ensure the results are disclosed. "I would ask someone what punishment a person should get for giving them a death sentence by ... injecting blood into them," said Grabowsky. "I would say a death sentence." Grabowsky said he now tests positive for tuberculosis after working with an infected inmate at Edmonton Institution. But Jeff Campbell, a spokesman for CSC, said rubber gloves and masks are provided to protect staff when there is potential to contact bodily fluids. And the current system allows prisoners the right to keep health information confidential. "There are concerns around the privacy of medical records," said Campbell. |
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