lated to communication among doctors in the penitentiary establishments with preliminary health-care units. In particular, whenever a prisoner registered with one preliminary health-care unit is transferred to another preliminary health-care unit, the information about the previous doctor, with whom the appointment was made, is not shared with another doctor. Therefore, prisoners do not receive consultation in a timely manner. It is important to register any information regarding an appointment for a consultation in the medical records of a prisoner. The Public Defender recommended to the Ministry of Corrections to approve a standard special form which would register the name and the surname of a patient, the date when the need for medical consultation was established (and who established this need), the details of the specialist needed and the columns for the date and following recommendations. Furthermore, the Public Defender recommended to the Ministry of Corrections to ensure that the forms are comprehensively filled. It should be positively mentioned that, since August 2016, special journals were provided to the medical units of all penitentiary establishments with the sections for entering the information about prisoners’ appointment for a consultation and the data about the consultations. It should be positively mentioned that these journals in several penitentiary establishments are filled correctly. However, in some of the penitentiary establishments the journals only refer to the dates of consultations. For instance, there are only entries on the dates of consultations in the journals of penitentiary establishments nos. 3 and 5. The problem of receiving dental service remains problematic. The dental doctors working in penitentiary establishments do not have assistants. Besides, there are other problems in penitentiary establishments nos. 2 and 8. In particular, there is one dentist in establishment no. 2 providing dental services. Even in those cases, when prisoners have an acute toothache, they have to get in line and wait for a week or more. In penitentiary establishment no. 8, the officers on duty, without medical education or qualification, draft the appointment schedule for those patients wishing to see a doctor. The orthopaedic consultations are punctuated with certain delays. It should be noted that contracts are concluded several times a year with the clinic that manufactures prosthetics. The manufacturing of prosthetics is delayed until the contracts are finalised. 3.9.4.2. Medical Referrals According to the information received from the Medical Department of the Ministry of Corrections of Georgia,298 the first link, which is in charge of the primary health-care, is at a penitentiary establishment. It determines on its own the need for specialised medical service for prisoners and requests referral of a patient by registering the request in a software; from the moment of the registration, the Medical Department processes the request, and when there is sufficient justification for the referral and the request is in compliance with national guidelines (if needs be, with international guidelines as well), the request is confirmed and assigned a registration number. 298 Letter no. MOC01700166123 of the Medical Department of the Ministry of Corrections of Georgia dated 6 March 2017. NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM (NPM), 2016 137