People serving prison sentences in Armenia often lack access to adequate health services and have to turn to their cellmates for medical assistance, the country’s human rights ombudsman said on Monday.
Arman Tatoyan drew this conclusion in a special report based on interviews that were conducted by representatives of his office as well as civic activists in various Armenian prisons last year.
The report paints a grim picture of prison healthcare with concrete examples of unnamed inmates who claimed to have lacked proper treatment and medication for their illnesses and disabilities. One of them, a visually impaired person, is said to have been discharged from a prison hospital in Yerevan and sent back to jail despite being able to move around unaided.
According to the report, another prisoner underwent only X-ray screening when he was hospitalized after suffering a broken leg. He subsequently relied on cellmates, rather than doctors or other prison staff, to meet his basic needs.
“These practices are unacceptable,” says the report. It also says that convicts in need of medical aid are not always transferred to prison or civilian hospitals in violation of European conventions and norms adopted by Armenia. It also cites cases of sick prisoners not being provided with necessary medicines.
According to Tatoyan, law-enforcement authorities blame this on a lack of public funding for medical care in the penitentiary system. The ombudsman dismissed this explanation.
Almost 3,900 persons served prison sentences or were under pre-trial arrest in Armenia as of September 2015, up from around 3,000 in 2005.
According to the Council of Europe’s Annual Penal Statistics (SPACE) released in March, 38 inmates died in Armenian prisons in 2014. Activists monitoring prison conditions in the country say such deaths primarily result from a lack of adequate and quick medical aid.
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