tentiary department and all medical services are performed in accordance with existing standards. The standard of medical care was developed and approved by the Minister, which is in the process of implementation. NCDC has introduced the form of submission of the monthly statistics, uniform for the whole state. On December 30, 2015 the Minister of Corrections approved Order N8467 on the “The rules of operating the Ministry of Corrections’ statistics system - the terms of submission and the implementing service”. The steps taken by the Ministry are towards a positive side, but the prison health care still faces great challenges. According to Article 3(s1) of the Law on Health, medical assistance is urgent if without such assistance a patient’s death, disability or serious aggravation of health is inevitable. According to the Order of the Minister of Health N01-25/n dated 19 June 2013 “on determining classification of medical interventions and approving minimum requirements for primary healthcare institutions”, there are 4 classes of medical intervention: an urgent (critical) intervention is an intervention to save a life, an organ or an extremity involving resuscitation and the intervention usually starts several minutes after the decision has been made. An emergency (without delay) intervention means intervention when a life-threatening medical condition has already started and/or deteriorated acutely. Such medical conditions are those that may entail a loss of life, organ or extremity, while the actual intervention could be fixating a fracture, pain management and relieving other heavy symptoms. Normally a decision on intervention should be made within no later than 24 hours after the first-category preserving treatment is completed. Emergency (without delay) intervention is an early intervention while a patient’s condition is stable and his/her life, organ or extremity is not under urgent threat but the intervention has to be carried out in several days (2-5 days). A scheduled intervention is the one scheduled for a date that is convenient for the patient, the doctor and the medical institution. Unfortunately, the standard established by the above-mentioned ministerial order N0125/N is often breached and appropriate healthcare services are not accessible timely. Hence, we recommend that the penitentiary healthcare staff be guided with the aforementioned ministerial order in planning their medical interventions. RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE MINISTER OF CORRECTIONS • Ensure adequate number of doctors and nurses in every penitentiary establishment so that healthcare services can be provided timely and adequately. • Ensure that invited doctors visit the penitentiary institutions at proper intervals to timely and adequately provide the required medical services; ensure 108 NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM (NPM), 2015