There has been another methadone overdose at Canberra's jail.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Corrections authorities have confirmed that a prisoner at the Alexander Maconochie Centre collapsed in his cell on Saturday and had to be revived before being rushed to hospital.
Paramedics used the drug Narcan to revive the prisoner before taking him to hospital where he remained until returning to the prison on Monday.
A spokeswoman for the Justice and Community Safety Directorate said yesterday that the prisoner was being kept under observation at the AMC.
The Canberra Times revealed in November last year that, up to that point, there had been 12 drug overdoses at the AMC since March 2009, and three at Bimberi Youth Centre since September 2008.
It is not known if there have been any more methadone-related incidents between November 2011 and Saturday.
Six of the AMC overdoses were methadone-related, and three of those were double doses.
At any given time, there are thought to be about 60 prisoners at the jail who are on the methadone program and the reasons cited for overdoses included human error and prisoners ''doubling up'' on the drug by pretending to take their doses and hoarding them for later. At other times, overdoses have happened because of confusion about two prisoners with similar surnames.
The JACS spokeswoman confirmed yesterday that the incident had occurred.
''We can confirm that a 29-year-old male sentenced detainee at the AMC was taken to hospital on the afternoon of Sunday 2 September 2012 after collapsing in his accommodation unit,'' she said in a statement. ''The corrections officers initially, and Hume Health Centre staff once they arrived at the scene, applied appropriate first aid until the ambulance officers arrived.
''We understand that ambulance officers used Narcan to revive the detainee.
''He was returned to the AMC on Monday 3 September 2012 and remains under observation.
''The detainee, who is on a methadone treatment program, claims to have overdosed on methadone which he claims to have diverted.''
Canberra Liberals' prisons spokesman Jeremy Hanson sought to make the overdose an election issue yesterday. He said the incident was the fault of ACT Labor.
''If this is true, it's yet another serious failure at the jail which has been nothing short of an ongoing fiasco under ACT Labor and makes a mockery of Katy Gallagher's push for a needle exchange inside the jail,'' Mr Hanson said.
''Canberrans face a very clear choice at the election.
''If they vote Labor or Green, there will be a needle exchange at the jail - if they vote Liberal, there won't be.''