The Minister of Justice announced that the Ministry of Justice had a slate of 36 million euros from French hospitals.
“Justice is running out of steam. The ministry no longer has the means to pay its bills, ”declared Minister of Justice Jean-Jacques Urvoas in an interview with Journal du Dimanche (JDD). Hospitals are performing well on the ministry’s creditors’ list, and debt is growing.
“The management of the prison administration has 36 million euros in unpaid bills for hospitalizations of prisoners,” he said. Reason given: the efforts on the creation of magistrate positions in particular, but for which “the operating budgets have not followed”.
The prison administration struggles to provide adequate services to its prisoners. The controller general of places of deprivation of liberty, Adeline Hazan, had attacked the medical care and access to care of those detained in an opinion published in the official bulletin.
Insufficient medical staff
In an interview with the newspaper Release, she denounced in particular the lack of doctors in the prisons. The waiting times are far too long. “The penitentiary park has set up a large part of its new establishments in remote places where the health supply was already in difficulty,” she said, “and this does not encourage practitioners to volunteer to treat far from home. . “
The lack of specialists lengthens the waiting lists for oral health care in particular. Often, inmates end up going to local health facilities for consultation, and increase the ministry’s debt.
For these short-term visits, prisoners are referred to local hospitals which have secure rooms. In urgent cases or when the equipment is not suitable (resuscitation, treatment of severe burns), it can be referred to other establishments. For longer stays (greater than 48 hours), the interregional secure hospital units take over.
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