Report of the Polish Commissioner for Human Rights on the Activities of the National Mechanism for the Prevention ... that he had familiarised himself with the aforementioned Rules and Regulations. The team’ interview with the detainee also made it clear that he had no knowledge about his rights relating to his placement in the facility. The NMPT subsequently sent a letter regarding this matter to the Commander-in-Chief of the Police with a request to determine whether the Georgian citizen held in the PDR in Płońsk, after having been detained by the Border Guard submitted a request to contact a lawyer246. In his reply247, the Commander-in-Chief of the Police wrote that preliminary findings do not confirm that the detainee had submitted a request to contact a lawyer. Nevertheless, for the sake of fully clearing up the matter, the Commander-in-Chief of the Police had requested the Voivodeship Police Commander in Radom to provide a more complete explanation. The National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture is still waiting to learn the results of this request. In the same PDR, the visiting team members also expressed doubts regarding the manner in which examinations are conducted by doctors who decide whether detainees are healthy enough to be placed in the facility. Information provided by a detainee indicates that, in his case, the examination consisted of an interview alone without a physical examination, and that the doctor had merely observed him for a moment from a distance of several metres. The man’s allegation could be confirmed by the doctor’s failure to note the injuries visible on the detainee’s body. Inspectors also found it suspicious that the doctor’s certification stating there were no medical counter-indications to holding the man in the PDR was issued on 5 July at 11:45 p.m., and less than 2 hours later, at 1:23 a.m. the next day, an ambulance was summoned because the man’s health had suddenly deteriorated (at 12:40 a.m., according to monitoring system recordings). Taking into account these findings, the NMPT representatives sent a letter to the director of the independent public health-care centre (SPZZOZ) in Płońsk, requesting an explanation. In response, the director wrote that the allegations formulated against the doctor performing examinations of detained men had not been substantiated. The doctor in question declared that the examinations had been performed with all due diligence. Much greater understanding of the importance of conducting proper medical examinations before admitting people to the PDR was shown by the District Police Commander from Płońsk, who sent a request to the SPZZOZ director to instruct the doctors supervised by him about the necessity to include all relevant information concerning the health of examined persons, particularly any injuries they have suffered, in the content of every certificate of a person’s admission to the PDR. Letter to the Commander-in-Chief of the Police of 14 April 2017, ref. no. KMP.570.5.2016. Reply of the Commander-in-Chief of the Police of16 May 2017, ref. no. EK 2810/17. 246 247 86