Prison health service ‘borders on abuse’

THE standard of prison health services is “tantamount to abuse” and risks leaving taxpayers open to potentially serious medical litigation cases, it has been claimed.

A scathing letter from the Irish Prison Doctors Association (IPDA) to outgoing Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has claimed that medical support levels in the prison system are falling far below international best practice.

According to the letter, sent by IPDA secretary Dr Gregory Kelly on November 4, “working conditions, the lack of suitable facilities... and gross interference by non-medical administrators” are putting prisoner safety and taxpayers’ money at risk.

The correspondence — released to Irish Medical News after Mr Ahern failed to respond to it for two months — noted that the recent report by Trinity College researchers and commissioned by the Irish Prison Service called for one full-time doctor for every 250 prisoners.

However, despite this request Dr Kelly said the ratio in some parts of the prison service is closer to one in 1,000.

“I wish to put on record that it is not humanly possible to deliver a safe general practitioner service under these conditions.

“I personally am now providing a service to 400 prisoners despite being contracted to provide a service to 180,” said the Castlerea Prison-based doctor, whose views are supported by the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO).

In the letter, Dr Kelly warned prison health service facilities at Castlerea Prison are “squalid and Dickensian”, a situation he said was also apparent in the likes of Cork and Limerick Prisons.

He said “there is and never has been” any clerical support for prison doctors, significantly increasing the chances of medical litigation cases being taken which would cost the taxpayer.

“There is a very dangerous situation in regard to medical records and the transfer of medical information between prisons as records on paper files are not scanned into the centralised computer system.

“The absence of proper medical records creates a potential for medical error, exposes the doctor, the Irish Prison Service and indeed the taxpayer to medical mishap and future consequent litigation.

“Most importantly, it places the life and health of the patient at risk,” Dr Kelly wrote.

Mr Ahern and the Department of Justice have yet to respond to the claims in the letter.