Don't let prisoners be left without medical care — join the public discussion

The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation has prepared a draft of a resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation outlining the new Rules for granting medical assistance to prisoners.

Penitentiary medicine already faces serious problems: lack of trained medical professionals and equipment, high infection rates (including tuberculosis and HIV), restricted access to specialised medical care outside of the penal system, even when there are indications for it. The draft does not address these problems, but it can make the situation much worse.

Currently, the 12th chapter of the Rules obliges medical organisations to send a specialised medical person to a prisoner on the day of the request (if the consultation is urgent) or within three work days (if the consultation is planned).

These deadlines are already barely ever met, and now they are to be removed from the Rules altogether: if the draft is accepted, medical institutions will lose the last, formal reason to act quickly, and prisoners and human rights activists will lose an instrument of pressuring the system because there will be no deadlines to appeal.The new edition of the resolution further restricts access to medical help for prisoners, increases the waiting times, during which people have to suffer without treatment, and presents a real danger to their health and life.

What have we done?

As part of the public discussion on regulation.gov.ru, together with the “Neotlozhka” team, we composed a commentary demanding that the current deadlines for medical professionals remain in the 12th chapter, and we invited you to express your opinion as well. The full text of our commentary is available below.

On March 2nd, the public discussion was closed. Within just a few days, you have left 543 comments on the draft, and thanks to you, it became one of the most discussed on the platform. Thank you!

What happens next?

Already now, the platform states that our comments are “partially taken into account”. What this means in practice will become clear later, when the final version of the document is published. If the draft is returned for further changes or significantly changed, a new public discussion could follow. There are no regulated deadlines for changes and deliberation on such decisions; however, we will follow the developments of the situation and keep you updated whenever we have any news.