275. Such allegations give rise to concern over violations of the right of detainees to receive adequate medical care.589 Detainees are to be informed about the risks of particular drugs in order to give their informed consent or exercise their right to autonomy. According to several United Nations Special Procedures mandate-holders, treating a mentally competent detainee without his consent violates the right to health.590 The Human Rights Committee has also found that forced experimental treatment would also amount to ill-treatment if it is not “the most appropriate to meet [detainees’] medical needs”.591 Forcing detainees to take medication for mental illness when their health does not require it would therefore violate international human rights standards. Unreasonable delays and denial of medical care are in violation of the right to health.592 Furthermore, prison authorities and interrogators should not interfere or have control over whether and what type of medication detainees can receive. Medical care should never be conditioned on detainees’ co-operativeness.593 276. The provision of mental health care at Guantánamo appears to have been particularly deficient. Many detainees are said to have showed symptoms of psychological distress and mental pain from as early as 2002. Presumably, these were caused by a combination of factors that included their treatment in interrogation, their conditions of detention and their continued detention.594 Detainees who showed the greatest symptoms of psychological problems appear to have been treated as “non-compliant”, held in isolation and denied access to basic items. Subjecting detainees with mental health issues to prolonged solitary confinement in punitive conditions, however, prevents their recovery and may very well exacerbate their condition.595 Their isolation would not only amount to a violation of their right to medical care but could also constitute ill-treatment. 277. While medical personnel have a duty to report abuse, it has been reported that no policies or procedures on how to do so existed at Guantánamo until at least 2004.596 Such reporting standards and procedures have been established since then, but have been said to “remain seriously deficient”.597 This deficiency would stem in part from the lack of or inadequacy of a definition of reportable abuse, and the absence of any obligation to seek the probable relationship between the physical or psychological injury or symptom and the potential abuse.598 This is consistent with a review of the medical records and relevant case files of he subsequently lost consciousness; ODIHR interview with Mustafa Ait Idir and Hajj Boudella, ibid. See, also, UN Special Procedures, “Situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay”, op. cit., note 23, para. 70: “the Special Rapporteur (…) has received serious and credible reports of violations of the right to health (…) The reports allege, inter alia that (…)(iv) detainees have been subjected to non-consensual treatment, including drugging (…)”; Ethics Abandoned, op. cit., note 430, pp. xix, 43: “unexplained use of the anti-malarial drug Mefloquine, which may have significant mental side effects”, “detainee accounts and the Inspector General’s report reveal that involuntary treatment with psychoactive medications was not uncommon”. 589 UN Special Procedures, “Situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay”, ibid. 590 Ibid., para. 82. 591 UN HRC, Concluding observations, United States of America, CCPR/C/USA/CO/3/Rev.1, op. cit., note 569, para. 31. 592 UN Special Procedures, “Situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay”, op. cit., note 23, para. 70. 593 Ibid. 594 Ethics Abandoned, op. cit., note 430, p. xix; “Current Conditions of Confinement at Guantánamo”, Center for Constitutional Rights, op. cit., note 524, p. 9. 595 “Current Conditions of Confinement at Guantánamo”, Center for Constitutional Rights, ibid., pp. 9-10. 596 Ethics Abandoned, op. cit., note 430, p. xx. In this regard, US officials stressed that standards for reporting existed prior to 2004, and that the DoD Instruction on reportable incidents only solidified what was already in US policy. US comments to the draft report. 597 Ethics Abandoned, ibid., p. 77. 598 Ibid., pp. 78-80. 119