Prison doctors likely to resign over army cover

ARMY doctors were drafted in to treat 1,500 prisoners yesterday after a female prisoner attempted suicide and no prompt emergency cover was available.

This unprecedented and "inflammatory" move is likely to prompt the country's 23 striking prison doctors to resign en masse next week.

But the prison service insisted yesterday it had no option but to call in the army doctors because inmates' lives were being put at risk by the prison doctors' strike, now in its third week.