The Controller General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL), Adeline Hazan, published on July 16 a notice relating to the care of people detained in health establishments. Conclusion: many of the rights of hospitalized detainees are not respected.
However, these patients have, in principle, the same rights of access to care as all the others “subject to the restrictions linked to the deprivation of freedom to come and go to which they are subject”.
Too many medical extractions
Too many medical extractions take place due to the low number of specialists working in detention. The CGLPL recommends strengthening the presence of specialists within health units, but also that a reflection be carried out so that detainees who meet the legal conditions benefit from exit permissions in order to go alone to a health establishment.
“The detained persons are handcuffed and shackled during the transfer, but also during the consultations and medical examinations, even sometimes even during the surgical operations”, deplores Adeline Hazan. Systematic shackles or handcuffs while detainees must be handcuffed or shackled according to their level of danger, evaluated from 1 to 4. Likewise, the escort conditions must be individualized “with regard to the behavior of the person”.
Another recommended solution: the use of telemedicine in prisons. A device that would allow rapid and quality access to medical specialists.
Medical confidentiality is not applied
The presence of escort personnel during consultations or medical examinations is also a problem because it does not allow for the respect of medical confidentiality. The CGLPL recommends that medical consultations take place without the presence of an escort and that the surveillance be indirect (out of sight and out of the detained patient’s ear).
Adeline Hazan also reports on gynecological consultations, during which inmates were shackled and in the presence of female officers. This is contrary to respect for the dignity of women prisoners, as the penitentiary law of November 24, 2009 underlines.
No privacy in the treatment rooms
The rooms where detainees are treated often meet only security criteria and look more like places of detention than places of care.
The notice mentions in particular an establishment in the Center region where even the call button is withdrawn from detainees hospitalized for security reasons because it is placed at the end of a cord. The patient cannot therefore warn the medical team in an emergency. Only the intercom and video surveillance system can check its condition.
In prison care centers, detainees do not have access to the telephone, cannot send mail or receive visits from relatives or lawyers. Adeline Hazan calls for respect for the fundamental right to maintain family links and recommends that “visits, correspondence and telephone calls must be authorized according to the same rules as those applicable in penitentiary establishments”.
The CGLPL also regrets that in most bedrooms, there is no television, radio or newspapers. Finally, in some establishments, the configuration of the sanitary facilities does not allow the privacy of patients to be respected (no curtain isolating the sanitary facilities from the rest of the room, for example).
Prisoners often forgo medical treatment
As a result, many detainees renounce the care. To avoid this increasing trend, the CGLPL believes that information on the conditions of hospitalization must be provided to the detained patient, before hospitalization (list of authorized and prohibited personal effects), and on his arrival in the health establishment. (welcome booklet relating to the conditions of hospitalization in secure rooms as well as the related rights).
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