PENITENTIARY MEDICINE IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL HEALTH CARE REFORM IN UKRAINE.

OBJECTIVE: The aim: Identify the main issues in the penitentiary medicine functioning in the context of National Health Care Reform in Ukraine and determine the state of realization of the right to health care and medical assistance of convicts and detainees. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Materials and methods: This article used a set of general and special methods of scientific cognition. The empirical basis of the research consists of: inter¬national acts and standards in the penitentiary field and health care, statistics of the Ministry of Justice, reports of international organizations, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), scientific publications in databases of systematic reviews MEDLINE, PubMed, reports on the results of monitoring visits to prisons and pre-trial detention centers. CONCLUSION: Conclusions: Penitentiary medicine continues to be a separate departmental system, which does not consider the positive changes in the National Medical Services System. Such a superficial imitation of the method of guaranteeing prisoners' rights to medical care is a kind of cargo cultism of public institutions designed to ensure non-discriminatory conditions for implementing the right to health care for all population segments.

ENSURING THE RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE FOR GROUPS VULNERABLE TO HIV IN PENITENTIARY INSTITUTIONS AND PRE-TRIAL DETENTION CENTERS IN UKRAINE.

OBJECTIVE: The aim: To consider the problems of penitentiary health care for groups vulnerable to HIV in penitentiary institutions and pre-trial detention centers in Ukraine, and to determine the state of implementation of the rights of prisoners to health care. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Materials and methods: When writing this article, the authors used a number of scientific and special study methods: regulatory method, dialectical method, statistical method. We also conducted an anonymous survey of 150 released persons from penitentiary institutions and 25 medical workers from 7 penitentiary institutions and correctional colonies in different regions of Ukraine to assess the quality and availability of medical care for convicts vulnerable to HIV infection, tuberculosis, and viral hepatitis. CONCLUSION: Conclusions: The right to health-care of convicted prisoners must be ensured in compliance with the principle of free choice of specialist according to health-care law, health-care standards and clinical protocols (in other words, amount and standards of health-care available for prisoners must be the same as that available for other people). In practice prisoners are thrown out of the national health-care system, and the Ministry of Justice is unable to meet all needs. This can have a disastrous result as the penitentiary system will produce sick people who pose threat for civil society.