Turkmenistan: about three thousand prisoners died in the prison’s hospital
In the prison hospital MR-B/15, located in Mary region, about three thousand sick prisoners died within two years. ACCA learned about this from a source in the penitentiary system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Turkmenistan.
Our sources said that since the beginning of the pandemic and the closure of borders, many medicines have stopped coming to institutions. The food ration and its quality have sharply decreased. Butter, margarine have completely disappeared, eggs are given for breakfast once a week.
As it turned out, the administration of the prison’s hospital doesn’t follow the sanitary and epidemiological standards. Chlorine is given for disinfection once a week only for the surgical and tuberculosis departments, the rest are washed without disinfectants. Most of the dead are TB patients and infected with Covid-19. The prison’s hospital vaccinated against coronavirus with flu vaccines, one injection per prisoner.
The situation is worst in the tuberculosis department, where there is a critical shortage of medicines, and the available medicines are expired. All over the world, combined drugs are used in the treatment of tuberculosis, but they are still used separately in Turkmenistan. ACCA sources reported that when prescribing complex treatment for tuberculosis, all drugs are written in the prescription, but only those drugs, that are available, are given to sick prisoners. Complex preparations are available, but they are not given to sick prisoners, but are kept to be shown to commissions that come from Ashgabat with checks.
For the treatment of tuberculosis, the regimen (Isoniazid + Pyrazinamide + Rifampicin) is mainly used. When prescribing, one of the drugs is not given due to the fact that it is simply not available. At the moment, the hospital has only Rifampicin and all drugs are expired. These drugs are supplied through the Red Crescent Society, which is headed by President Berdymukhammedov’s sister, Gulnabat Dovletova.
Our sources said that all the expired drugs, supplied by the Red Crescent, were in fact already written off in other countries and were brought into the country ostensibly for utilization. According to the documents, it follows that the drugs are purchased with funds from the budget and the state pays real money for expired drugs written off for utilization.
The President’s sister sells expired drugs at the market price. It’s worth recalling that the President’s sister Gulnabat Dovletova has access to currency conversion in unlimited quantities at the bank rate of 3.50 manats per dollar.
The penitentiary system of Turkmenistan is one of the most closed in the world; international observers and human rights activists are not allowed into the country. Turkmenistan also ranked second after the United States in the world in terms of the number of prisoners.
