Prisoners in Romania in complicated or extreme medical situations will qualify for family support to get food or goods for certain necessities, apart from the rights provided for by the application law, Director General of the National Penitentiary Authority (ANP) Dan Halchin said on Friday, according to Agerpres.

„We have initiated an internal approach to review the internal regulations, which would allow people in complicated medical situations or in extreme situations to use dialogue with family members or to qualify for their support to get food or goods of a certain necessity, apart from the rights provided for by the enforcement law (…). Our opinion is that these dialogues, conversations, visits should be added to social assistance measures (…) And then, internally, we will make the necessary changes, so that there will no longer be instances in which we may have people deprived of liberty admitted to the hospital without being able to have access to adequate support from family members,” Halchin told a news conference.

He added that the healthcare system in penitentiaries is in no way inferior to the public one in Romania.

„At the level of the penitentiary system, 7,000 chronic patients are treated out of the 23,500 – 24,000 who may be there at a given time. Approximately 550,000 examinations are provided by 145 doctors. Occupancy in this case is 50%. In addition to healthcare, all these doctors must also deal with related activities, writing prescriptions, participating in multidisciplinary boards, etc. We are aware that in the penitentiary system there are people, our peers, who are part of society we live in. Treating these people with dignity has nothing to do with the act they committed or the crime they are convicted of. However, no matter how great our involvement is, unfortunately there are extreme situations where deaths occur from medical causes (…). In the Romanian penitentiary system, mortality is four times lower than that of the general population. This ratio can only be a consequence of the number of the large number of medical examinations and visits that I explained above. Practically, every person deprived of liberty is seen by a doctor twice a month,” said Halchin.

Agerpres