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2011-11-08

The Department of Medicine and Sanitary Maintenance of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine explains a situation in health care for wards.

The prison overcrowding crisis reveals the urgent need for changes in society, in criminal and penal laws. Prison system has become a hostage to the public and political processes in Ukraine, and then - a hostage of system of law enforcement agencies and judiciary. On November 4, 2011 the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine granted a comment to numerous publications about the conditions of prisoners and the status of medicine in penal institutions. A spokesman of the SPSU reported the next ...

The Head of The State Penitentiary Service, his deputies and heads of services in central office and in regional offices paid special attention to providing prompt, effective and professional medical assistance to persons who are temporarily detained in penal institutions of Ukraine. In this regard, the management of Penitentiary System has maid an analysis of causes of mortality and certain omissions in the medical care for people arrested as well as convicted. The analysis discovered a number of objective and subjective circumstances of this situation.

 So, on the one hand, a distortion of statistical reporting of previous years has been revealed in penitentiary institutions of Dnipropetrovsk region, as well as omissions in the work of some special medical commissions of the release from punishment of prisoners for health reasons.

On the other hand, they recognized a number of subjective factors that explain the increase in mortality rate in penal institutions. The main cause of mortality is the presence of prisoners with AIDS (34%). It should be noted, that aid for HIV-infected in hospitals of the SPS of Ukraine is given in accordance with the Laws of Ukraine "On combating the spread of diseases caused by HIV, and legal and social protection of people living with HIV," "On approval of the National Programme for HIV-Prevention, treatment, care and support for HIV-infected and AIDS patients in 2009 - 2013 years. " Another reason is the moral and technical obsolescence of medical equipment (81%), gaps and inconsistency to present time of the current regulatory framework on these issues, the number of judicial failures (50%) to release of terminally ill prisoners for health reasons (85 deaths during the current year). 21 people died waiting up to month for court decision for release in 2011 in Donetsk, Kiev, Kharkov and Kherson.

To solve the problems identified and to improve a menagement in this realm the Prison Department has taken a number of regulatory measures. Amomg those measures were organized the interagency concils and working meetings with heads of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Interior Affairs, Ministry of Justice, the General Prosecutor, the Ombudsman, the heads of special committees of the Parliament of Ukraine and relevant services of the Cabinet and the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, which clearly identifies ways for further improvement of medical care of prisoners and convicts, developing cooperation of agencies and services in these matters. In addition, the Central Office of the Penitentiary Service drafted and sent to relevant special committees of the Parliament of Ukraine proposals on amending of the current legislation.

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