The inquest decision of the death of Roopan a/l Karnagaran, who died in custody at Kajang Prison three years ago, was finally delivered after a delay by over a year, with the decision postponed seven times within that period. Whilst Coroner Rasyihah Ghazali held that there was no negligence by Kajang Hospital and Kajang Prison behind Roopan’s ‘natural’ death, issues that critically reflected longstanding contributing factors to custodial deaths due to health issues were also highlighted, namely poor prison conditions and inadequate health infrastructure in the prison health clinic.
With due respect to the Coroner’s Court, Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM) opines that the absence of negligence by Kajang Hospital does not detract from the possibility that Roopan’s life might have been saved had the D-dimer test results indicating thrombosis been made available and acted upon. In Kajang Hospital, the D-dimer test was not a routine one administered to patients at the time, and yet it was ordered for Roopan – thus suggesting grounds for the provisional diagnosis of thrombosis. The two doctors who respectively prepared the discharge report and discharged Roopan also testified that had they seen the D-dimer results, they would have taken relevant measures to ascertain whether the aforementioned provisional diagnosis still stood. Knowing who ordered that D-dimer test for Roopan would thus provide the conclusive answer to whether and to what extent had there been oversight on Kajang Hospital in detecting and responding to Roopan’s thrombosis condition. Unfortunately, the alleged lack of witnesses and hospital documentation have hampered this critical lead from being explored.
Whilst the court was unable to identify the cause of Roopan’s thrombosis, the fact remains that poorly ventilated and unsanitary detention facilities can increase the vulnerability of detainees to diseases. On-duty healthcare professionals who are unavailable at the material time and inadequate medical equipment in prison clinics are persisting issues that contribute to delays in identifying and responding to critical health conditions among detainees – also notably highlighted by the Parliamentary Special Select Committee on Human Rights, Election and Institutional Reform in their 2023 report on prison conditions in Malaysia. State commitment to upholding detainees’ right to health, as enshrined in the Lockup Rules 1953 and the Nelson Mandela Rules, should be concretised. On this note, SUARAM calls on the government to prioritise allocations in the upcoming Budget 2026 to the Prisons Department and the Ministry of Health to address these longstanding infrastructure shortcomings.
Comments