located in old buildings, with a single stove in the middle, so that all patients had to
come close to get warm a bit; doors were closed, so that patients could not go out for
a walk.
• medical services in penitentiaries.
Several aspects were discussed here: ▪ whether medical services in
penitentiaries should be subordinated to the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of
Health, presenting the cases of Armenia and Finland, where medical services are
probided by a penitentiary-independent institution; ▪ the fact that persons deprived
from freedom showed more psychological troubles during the execution of their
punishment than when they had entered the system, and having well-prepared
professionals, with intervention and behavioural change programmes, was very
difficult; these issues were held as the main problems in the Albanian penitentiary
system; the Albanian representative underlined the necessity of providing very good
conditions for people working in penitentiaries, not only for persons deprived from
freedom; for the latter, psychological assessment and then intervention itself were
highly important; ▪ about 2500 complaints from prisoners were received in Morocco
on an annual basis, mostly related to food, the procedure for refusing food, the
conditions in the penitentiary and bureaucracy; at least one refusal of food was seen
every day and 1 of 5 deaths in the penitentiary was due to refusal of food; thus, one
of the purposes of NPM members was to identify the reason of refusal of food; ▪ in
Armenia, about 60% of the complaints in penitentiaries were related to medical
services, but attempts were made to solve the issues (a reform was initiated in
penitentiaries); the first issue identified by NPM was the physicians’ independence,
i.e. physicians did not have access to certain prisoners, could not examine them, as
the decision was not theirs, but of the penitentiary workers; another issue was that
physicians were not prepared enough and did not take part in continuous professional
training; furthermore, it was emphasized that physicians should have a physicianpatient approach, not a physician-person deprived from freedom one; physicians had
to be trained to work in penitentiaries exclusively, and this solution was thought to be
the best for the supply of high quality medical services in a penitentiary.
90
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