More than two dozen staff at a prison in Kent were “deliberately poisoned” with the drug spice, a union has said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Workers were allegedly given the narcotic by “prisoners working in the staff canteen” at HMP Swaleside in Kent, the Criminal Justice Workers Union said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spice, a synthetic cannabinoid, can cause dizziness, breathing difficulties, chest pain, seizures and paranoia, according to the NHS website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some 25 staff were “poisoned” at the men’s high-security jail, union official Andy Hamlin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nine ambulances attended and an emergency incident unit was set up “within the establishment”, Mr Hamlin added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five people were taken to hospital last week, he said, although South East Coast Ambulance Service said three had needed hospital treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While it is not unusual for prisoners to be working in staff canteens, they are expected to be “low-risk”, Mr Hamlin commented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That “clearly hasn’t happened in this case”, he added, and is calling for a “full investigation”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HM Prison and Probation Service “must do more to protect the health and safety of its staff”, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is understood that none of the those affected were in a critical condition and all have since been discharged from hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Prison Service spokeswoman said: “A number of staff were taken ill following an incident at HMP Swaleside last week but have all now returned to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There is an ongoing investigation and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A South East Coast Ambulance Service spokesman said: “I can confirm that South East Coast Ambulance responded to a medical incident at HMP Swaleside in Eastchurch, Sheerness, after being called at approximately 2.10pm on Thursday 9 May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Ambulance crews attended and worked alongside the prison medical team to assess and treat a number of patients at the scene before three were taken by ambulance to hospital for further checks.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kent Police said officers attended to assist the ambulance service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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More than two dozen staff at a prison in Kent were “deliberately poisoned” with the drug spice, a union has said. Workers were allegedly given the narcotic by “prisoners working in the staff canteen” at HMP Swaleside in Kent, the Criminal Justice Workers Union said. Spice, a synthetic cannabinoid, can cause dizziness, breathing difficulties, chest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5497,7960,11273,12634,6825,10248,10197,7351,10419,11262,12309,3570,7968,13228,5617,421,8306,11926,5807,5655,8206,7231,3080,10415],"class_list":["post-42747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-ambulance","tag-case","tag-drug","tag-health","tag-hospital","tag-inmates","tag-investigation","tag-jail","tag-justice","tag-kent","tag-men","tag-nhs","tag-nine","tag-patients","tag-poison","tag-police","tag-prison","tag-prisoners","tag-risk","tag-security","tag-treatment","tag-union","tag-united-kingdom","tag-work"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42749,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42747\/revisions\/42749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}