When the town’s volunteer ambulance association became overwhelmed with transporting sick inmates to local hospitals due to a post-holiday spike in COVID-19 cases at the local MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution, everyone agreed something had to be done.
In the end, it was the University of Connecticut Fire Department that stepped in to assist with those inmate transports to ease the burden on the ambulance association.
It was in September that state officials decided that all inmates who tested positive for COVID-19 would be transferred to a medical isolation unit at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution located at 1153 East St. South, according to First Selectwoman Melissa Mack.
Mack said she was not entirely pleased with that decision.
“I told the Department of Correction months ago that I was not comfortable with the unilateral decision and burden they placed on Suffield and I would be monitoring the situation closely,” Mack said.