7 OTHER ISSUES The documents are largely identical and Region South’s routine was dated 27 March 2020. The routine showed, inter alia, that it was important that healthcare staff only met clients with medical conditions which could not wait. In order to reduce the workload on nurses and reduce close contact with new clients, a less detailed note-taking template had been developed for initial health examinations. Furthermore, the follow up to these examinations had been removed. Finally, it was stated in the routine that the number of tests taken would be minimised. Parliamentary Ombudsman Katarina Påhlsson explained that she could not interpret the situation in any other way than that the spread of Covid-19 through society had led to inmates’ access The Prison and Probation to healthcare being liService needs to ensure mited. She stated that she did understand that there are no unauthorised restrictions on that healthcare staff, in the event of suspected access to health care or confirmed infection of Covid-19, could need to reprioritise and take precautionary measures, but said that the routine in question was not based on the premise that there would be reprioritisations in the event of a suspected or confirmed infection. She further stated the following:7 “Instead, the routine is based on staff generally minimising all contact with inmates. In my opinion, this is unacceptable. This also applies to the fact that it is not clear for how long the general restriction will apply. There are reasons for the Prison and Probation Service to review its routines and how they 7 See the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s decision of 30 June 2020, ref. no. O 122020. are applied to ensure that there are no unjustified restrictions on inmates’ access to health and medical care.” 7.3 The actions of remand prison and prison staff With regard to the responsibility of staying at home in the event of displaying or feeling symptoms of the virus, several inmates in remand prisons and prisons stated in their responses to the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s questionnaire that staff had been at work despite the fact that they had a cough or runny nose. An inmate at Hall prison described the situation as follows: “I think there are several members of staff who have or have had symptoms when I’ve heard them walking around and coughing and so on. Then there are a lot of new staff here and a lot of regular staff away, and when you ask if they are home because they have symptoms and so on, it feels like it is being covered up since the staff who are away have had a lot of contact with us inmates and it worries me that the prison is not transparent enough to tell us when the staff has fallen ill so we get to know if we are at risk of contracting the virus. “ In her decision, Parliamentary Ombudsman Katarina Påhlsson stated she understood that it can create anxiety among inmates if staff show symptoms that may indicate infection of Covid-19. As a rule, inmates do not have the opportunity to choose which staff they should be in the vicinity of. Additionally, inmates often come into close contact with staff (less than the two metres under the general guidelines on physical distance), for – 56 –