medical interview but included also physical examination of the patients, including blood pressure check and an electrocardiography examination if needed262. Medical care has been negatively assessed by inmates from the prisons in Chełm, Rzeszów, Czerwony Bór prison and the remand prison in Międzyrzecz. The inmates emphasized that their comments concerned medical care provided in the penitentiary establishments in general, not only in the times of the pandemic. The inmates claimed that it was very difficult to get medical appointments and that they were conducted without due care. When asked how they assessed medical care during the pandemic, the most common reply was that it was just as poor as before263. Objections to the penitentiary medical care system as such have also been raised by the director of the prison in Łupków. Among the basic problems, he emphasized, inter alia, the insufficient number of beds in prison hospitals, which makes it necessary to refer inmates to hospitals outside prisons. This is particularly difficult during the pandemic and results in the hospitalization of only most urgent cases without delay. In his opinion, the waiting time for planned treatments was much too long264. One of the isolation facilities for prisoners infected with the coronavirus, established during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, is the isolation unit within the hospital in the Potulice prison. The staff of the Potulice prison hospital included the following specialist doctors: general surgery - 1 doctor; internal medicine - 5 doctors; infectious diseases - 1 doctor; pulmonology - 3 doctors; dermatology - 1 doctor; ophthalmology - 1 doctor; orthopaedics - 1 doctor; neurology - 1 doctor; psychiatry - 1 doctor; dentistry - 2 doctors; epidemiology - 1 doctor; family medicine - 1 doctor; laryngology - 1 doctor. Moreover, the hospital also employs 24 nurses, one radiology technician and one dental technician. Two persons are employed in the pharmacy unit. According to the prison director, as regards medical staff shortages, there is a shortage of nurses at that time. The difficulties encountered in the times of the coronavirus epidemic include primarily limited access to medical care at health care facilities outside prisons. It should be noted that although the prison hospital in Potulice has established an isolation unit for people infected with the coronavirus, it does not have specialist equipment e.g. medical ventilator machines, the use of which can be necessary if the symptoms of the coronavirus infection worsen in a patient. 262 See: Report on the NMPT visit to the prison in Krzywaniec (KMP.571.13.2020). 263 See: Report on the NMPT visit to the prison in Chełm (KMP.571.14.2020). 264 See: Report on the NMPT visit to the prison in Łupków (KMP.571.26.2020). 98