Physicians for Human Rights-Israel UPDATE 7 January 2003 In Response to PHR-Israel Petition Health Ministry Panel Finds Medical Rights Abuses in Israeli Prison System A Committee of Specialists was set up last June following a petition by PHR-Israel to the Israeli High Court of Justice. The petition was based upon the PHR-Israel comprehensive report entitled: "These Worldly bars: Maltreatment and Neglect at the Israeli Prison Service Medical Center". http://www.phr.org.il/Phr/downloads/dl_119.doc In the petition PHR-Israel listed specific and grave instances of faulty medical care received by prisoners, including abuse and neglect in the main medical center of the Prison Services. Additionally, PHR-Israel found that no effective supervisory mechanism was in place to oversee the medical treatment given within the system. Panel critical of medical services in prisons By Ran Reznik, Ha'aretz Newspaper, 6 January 2003 A Health Ministry committee has raised serious questions about the level of medical care in Israel's prisons. In a report submitted last Thursday to Health Ministry director general Boaz Lev, the panel says there are scarcely any specialists employed in Prison Service clinics and a large part of the nursing staff is not properly qualified. The panel was set up following a petition by Physicians for Human Rights to the Supreme Court last June. The organization listed grave claims of abuse and neglect at Prison Service clinics. The panel, headed by a senior Health Ministry official and including two members of Physicians for Human Rights, visited 15 prison clinics and the Prison Services central hospital at Ayalon prison, and met with the prisons' chief medical officer. The panel found that the 114 bed hospital in Ayalon prison employed convicts as auxiliary staff although they had no training and were not adequately supervised. The panel heard prisoners complain they had been abused by prisoners working as auxiliary staff in the hospital. One prisoner said he had not been fed during his stay in the hospital. The panel found that vital tests and operations were held up for excessive periods, sometimes several months - one prisoner had to wait eight months for a hernia operation. Acute treatments were also found to be delayed for hours, especially at night time. In a classified appendix to the report, a prisoner (a former gynecologist convicted of murder) complained to the panel that he had asked to see a doctor urgently with chest pains but several hours passed before he was examined. The prisoner was found to have a life-threatening heart condition. The panel also found sanitary conditions in some prisons unsatisfactory. In some prisons rats were found in open sewers near clinics and kitchens, and food was served in open, unclean dishes. The panel found that that prisons were failing to supervise hygiene in prison cells and that some were neglected and dirty with fleas a common problem. The panel also noted that prisoners are kept under cramped conditions with up to 15 prisoners per cell, with some prisoners sleeping on the floor on mattresses. Sleeping was arranged by the prisoners themselves and prisoners who had been allocated a bed for medical reasons had to sleep on the floor. In one case an amputee was forced to sleep on the floor and carry his mattress on his back while the cell was cleaned. On a positive note, the panel found that the Prison Services did not interfere in the professional decisions of medical staff and that in general prisoners received satisfactory treatment. The panel also found that prison doctors were committed to their work and that the prisoners received all the services included in the medical baskets of the health funds, and in most cases additional services such as dental treatment. The panel recommended that the Public Security Ministry set up a body responsible for supervision of medical facilities in conjunction with the Health Ministry, and that it appoint a senior doctor as medical ombudsman. The panel also recommended that the Prison Services central medical facility operate under the auspices of a university medical faculty, a move it said would give prisoners access to better medical treatment. (Ha'aretz Newspaper, 6 January 2003) For more details contact either Noam Lubell, Director of the Prisoners and Detainees Project, or Shabtai Gold, Public Outreach, at 972-3-687-3718.