Acting director of health and physical care in the department of correctional services Maria Mabena said the turnover time for prison healthcare workers ranged from a day to a year.
"Sometimes a nurse comes one morning and the following morning resigns," she said in a briefing to the portfolio committee on correctional services.
"It is similar to the pharmacist. The doctors only stay two to three weeks. They don't stay in the department.
"The turnover ranges from one day to a year."
Mabena said the biggest challenge for the department was a lack of adequately trained nurses in primary health care.
"If you have nurses trained in primary health care, you would need doctors and pharmacists to a very limited degree.
"But the more we train them, the more they leave the department."
A lack of adequate resources was "seriously" impacting on the management of "priority" diseases, such as tuberculosis (TB), diabetes, hypertension and mental illness.
"Instead of dealing with preventive and promotive, we are dealing with corrective services where we require more medicine. That has cost implications."
A lack of access to drugs was leading to complications and drug resistance, especially in TB cases.
In one management area, the department waited six months before it could access TB drugs, Mabena said.
The Mental Health Care Act required inmates to be incarcerated in designated institutions, but correctional services' health facilities "did not meet the criteria for designation".
Overcrowding in prisons was having a "huge" impact on healthcare delivery.
Turnaround times for laboratory results was another challenge.
"It sometimes takes six months for [the department of correctional services] to receive TB results," Mabena said.
"Offenders must have the same access and quality and range of healthcare as those rendered to the community.
"The person's ability to access to healthcare services should not be compromised because they have been incarcerated."
Committee chairman Vincent Smith said the issue was extremely urgent and would be interrogated in depth by the committee next year.
The department's acting commissioner Jenny Schreiner said a health action plan had been costed and finalised.
She said the department had an excellent working relationship with the department of health during a recent measles outbreak at the Johannesburg prison.
"Although we have major challenges, there are elements of good cooperation taking place," she said.
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