Artur Sakunts, “There is no doctor at “Vanadzor” penitentiary”
05:58, October 11, 2013 | News | Detention Facilities
Twice each year an inmate should undergo a medical examination. The Special Medical Committee administers a general examination irrespective of fact whether or not inmates have complaints.
All of Armenia’s penitentiaries have medical units where relevant medical care should be provided to the convicts. According to our data, “Vanadzor” penitentiary” doesn’t have a medical unit, however, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Artur Sakunts mentions that “there is a medical unit, but it lacks a doctor and upon necessity, while, there is almost constantly a need for it, a doctor is called for”.
By Sakunts’ words, apart from the capital’s penitentiaries, there is no doctor, being it a physician, in almost of the penitentiaries of the provinces, which is a serious challenge. According to the latter’s conviction, the issues is conditioned by the fact that the remuneration of the doctors in the penitentiaries is rather low and that not every physician can work under the administration’s jurisdiction since it is not an independent medical service.
Upon admission to the penitentiary the convict must mandatorily undergo an examination. Each convict and inmate should have a medical card with all the treatments and medication intake history filled out during the whole conviction term. Upon necessity referral to another hospital for providing additional medical care should also necessarily be indicated.
According to Sakunts, there were cases when the penitentiary administration’s head considered moving the inmate to a civil hospital: the reason was that the Penitentiary administration didn’t manifest, mildly put, such a good treatment towards that specific inmate and “it is a great disgrace, if the inmate dies on the way from convict’s hospital to civil hospital”.