Kyrgyzstan: prisoners were restricted in receiving medical care during pandemic
The Public Foundation “Lawyers for Human Rights” presented the results of “Monitoring the observance of the right to health protection of the prison population of the Kyrgyz Republic in the conditions of COVID-19”. It says that prisoners in the republic were limited in the right to medical care.
The assessment of the state of penitentiary health in the period from October 2020 to January 2021 was carried out by the Institute of the Ombudsman of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Public Foundation “Lawyers for Human Rights” with the assistance of the administration of the State Penitentiary Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Public Health of the Kyrgyz Republic.
According to the data presented in the report “Monitoring the observance of the right to health protection of the prison population in the Kyrgyz Republic in the conditions of COVID-19”, in 2020, 8724 prisoners were held at the institutions of the State Penitentiary Service. Of these, 324 were women, 11 were minors, 139 were pensioners over the age of 60.
In addition, 58 people with disabilities are kept in prisons of the Kyrgyz Republic, 26 of them are disabled people of 1-2 groups. Also in closed institutions, there are 183 people with HIV infection, 83 people with drug addiction, 22 with alcohol addiction and 59 patients with tuberculosis.
In 2020, 962 prisoners received treatment in closed institutions, including 51 patients, who were undergoing inpatient treatment in civilian health care institutions.
In Kyrgyzstan, 51 people died in prisons in 2020, 45 of them from diseases. In 2019, 54 people died in prisons, in 2018 – 65.
“Based on the monitoring results, it became clear that the State Penitentiary Service doesn’t have a quality and safety management system for medical care; audits and other work in the field of safety and quality improvement are not conducted. Insufficient preparation of institutions of the penitentiary system in case of emergencies, a low level of quality of medical care, irrational use of funds in conditions of a budget deficit were noted. There is no comprehensive work plan for the medical service of the State Penitentiary Service with an indication of activities and notes on their results. The surveillance system is not effective enough and doesn’t allow to reliably detect the background incidence of infections associated with medical procedures, evaluate the effectiveness of measures taken to prevent the infections associated with medical procedures and develop corrective measures to reduce the risks of the infections associated with medical procedures,” the human rights activists note.
The Public Foundation “Lawyers for Human Rights” considers the shortage of medical workers in prisons to be one of the burning problems.
A staff of 304 medical workers is stipulated in 18 colonies of Kyrgyzstan. Of these, 85 staff members are doctors, 125 are nurses, and the rest are junior medical personnel. However, currently there are only 49 doctors and 107 nurses. This means that almost half of the doctors are missing in prisons.
In addition, the monitoring revealed the problems of irrational use of medicines:
– improper use of antibiotics, often in inadequate doses for the treatment of infectious diseases of non-bacterial etiology;
– unjustified use of the parenteral route of drug introduction;
– non-compliance with the provisions of clinical guidelines when prescribing medicines;
– non-observance of the rules for storing medicines.
Researchers analyzed the republic’s penitentiary health care to further work out the concept of its development, the recommendations for improving interagency cooperation, as well as optimize activities in accordance with regulatory documents and recommendations in the field of strengthening health systems, improving the health of the prison population during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s worth noting that in October last year, the National Center for the Prevention of Torture, the Ombudsman Institute and the human rights movement “Bir Duino – Kyrgyzstan” also conducted a joint investigation concerning the epidemiological situation in prisons. The report on the results of this work indicated that in the colony No. 47 more than a thousand prisoners sought medical help with symptoms of pneumonia, 6 people died.
According to the State Penitentiary Service, 6 people died in custody from pneumonia, 2 – from coronavirus. In July 2020, human rights activist Azimzhan Askarov, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, died from bilateral pneumonia.
The World Health Organization points out that prisons are important places for taking action to reduce health inequalities and improve the health of people, who are not receiving essential health services.
People, who are in prison, go there from society and return from there to society. So, the health problems solution in prisons has an impact on the health outcomes of society as a whole, for example, on the prevention and control of infectious diseases.
Quality medical care for prisoners is not only an important sign of observance of human rights in prisons, but also a way to maintain the health of the entire population. The World Health Organization and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime note that close attention is needed to the health of prisoners. It comes with a higher risk of getting socially dangerous diseases, such as tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), in overcrowded penitentiary institutions and a high concentration of people at risk for these diseases.
