CAT/C/NOR/CO/8 adversely affect their health, that they enjoy procedural safeguards, and have the right to file complaints and to submit their cases for judicial review; (d) Evaluate and assess the effects of the practice of isolation or full exclusion on the mental and physical health of prisoners in order to reduce them and use alternative and less intrusive measures whenever possible; (e) Ensure that de facto isolation of prisoners that is similar to solitary confinement, such as full exclusion, is based on policy, law and guidelines, and set a maximum number of days a prisoner can remain in full exclusion; (f) Provide prisoners with information about their legal rights and extend the deadline for the administrative appeals of prisoners regarding their exclusion or solitary confinement beyond the current 48 hours; (g) Review the existing mechanisms of control and legal remedies, provide detailed statistics on the use of isolation and full exclusion from human contact, provide them to the Committee and make them public; (h) Exempt from and not apply the administration ABE-reform, which has imposed annual budget cuts for all government entities since 2014 as a measure to contribute to the Government’s reforms to reduce bureaucratization and increase efficiency, in all places in which persons are deprived of their liberty in order that insufficient building capacities and conditions and insufficient staff do not jeopardize the health and lives of persons deprived of their liberty. Mental health care for prisoners 19. The Committee is concerned about information that a very high percentage of prisoners have mental health problems and are not always provided with appropriate psychiatric health care. It remains concerned at the severe insufficiency of mental health care services and of the capacities of inpatient psychiatric wards to accommodate prisoners with serious mental illnesses, which often result in their placement in isolation, including security cells, which leads to a further deterioration of their health. It is particularly concerned at the reported absence of adequate health care for persons with symptoms of severe mental illness in Ila, Ullersmo and Alna prisons (arts. 2, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 16). 20. The Committee reiterates its recommendation (see CAT/C/NOR/CO/6-7, para. 13) that the State party take all measures to ensure that prisoners with psychosocial disabilities and serious mental health problems receive adequate mental health care, by increasing the capacity of inpatient psychiatric wards, including the security departments, and providing full access to mental health care services within all prison facilities. It should abolish the use of full isolation of persons with mental and psychosocial disabilities, in particular when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures. Use of coercive measures in psychiatric health care 21. While taking note of the amendments to the Mental Health Care Act in 2017 and the appointment of a legislation committee to assess the use of coercive measures in health and care services that is scheduled to report to the Government in June 2019, the Committee is concerned: (a) About the continued widespread use in psychiatric and mental health institutions of restraints and other coercive methods, including involuntary electroconvulsive therapy, with the risk of lasting and irreversible adverse physical and mental consequences, such as the involuntary administration of neuroleptic drugs and other psychotropic medication; (b) About the weak procedural safeguards for patients and the lack of recourse to less intrusive measures as a first resort in order to protect patients undergoing treatment without consent, in particular electroconvulsive treatment; as well as insufficient information and possibilities for patients to lodge complaints against their treatment and the fear of retribution if they do so; 5

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