Published: Thursday | October 1, 2009
Just over four months after a May 22 fire killed seven girls at the Armadale Juvenile Correctional Centre, two parents have said they regretted placing their children at the facility.
"A jus' because shi neva did a hear. Mi sorry di day when she guh there," said Claudette Edwards, mother of one of the girls who survived the fire at the St Ann institution.
Edwards said she had no knowledge of the harsh realities her daughter had to endure and only heard of the situation based on news after the fire.
"When you guh there an look fi ar, everybody inside the room so if she even waah fi seh something different to you she cyaah seh anything," said Edwards. She explained that the correctional officers always stood guard whenever she spoke to her daughter and could hear every word they exchanged.
"Anything she need to seh to me pertaining to them down there she cyaah say it. She hug me and seh shi love mi an' dem t'ings, an nutt'n otherwise."
Shocked at the conditions
An upset Edwards said Armadale was not a place of safety and pointed to the use of buckets for toilets, and eating meals with hands. "I'm very upset about it because she never use her han eat yet. She always have a spoon or a fork and she say she haffi keep up her urine because she cyaah use the thing that everybody use," added Edwards. "When me get har di day she say she feel like shi fool."
The mother also told The Gleaner that her daughter is afraid of a stove that she has at home.
"She cyaah do nutt'n at all but she is coming around." Another parent, Ann-Marie Wissard, also expressed shock at the conditions her daughter lived in but said her teen always gave hints.
"I'm always asking her if she all right and she always say when she come home she have something to tell me." However, the secret of the buckets and lack of utensils were only revealed when her daughter was hospitalised after the fire.
Denial set in but the teen was adamant that it was true and Wissard erupted into a fit of rage as her daughter tried to calm her. "She didn't want me to talk fi di warder dem hear what I was cursing about," said Wissard.
She added that her daughter showed her signs of ringworm on her skin and told her the dorm was dirty. After the fire, Wissard explained that her teen could not sleep and had to be given sleeping pills and injections.
Severe burns
Wissard said her daughter, who received severe burns to her feet, is suffering from the effects including severe itching. "She have to use the washing brush and scratch it," explained Wissard, adding that she only received a bottle of cream and a dozen capsules with assistance from the Department of Correctional Services.
"She's bawling fi the pain in her stomach, she cannot stan up for long an' di foot is scratching her now because di cream finish," Wissard noted. The former ward of the state has been harbouring thoughts of suicide and, today, Wissard said, the situation is worse.
The teen has only seen a psychiatrist once since the fire and her behaviour is now negatively affecting her family. She blames her mother for her woes, and Wissard cannot help the guilt she feels. "Sometimes I feel so frustrated over it because I send her there and I believe say she wudda come out good. Sometime when I look on her foot I blame myself," she said.
"Maybe I never send her there, or ask di judge fi tek her from me, maybe her two foot dem wouldn't burn up and she wouldn't be having these problems that she is having."