Country

Czechia

Detention issue

FRA research findings

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Legal instruments & key provisions

Legal instrument Key provision
Regulation No. 345/1999, Rules of Procedure of the Exercise of the Punishment of the Deprivation of Liberty(řád výkonu trestu odnětí svobody)Healthcare is provided to prisoners by the Prison Service in its healthcare facilities. If necessary, healthcare is provided in cooperation with other healthcare providers. There is a crisis department in prisons for prisoners who experience a sudden mental crisis.
Act No. 169/1999 Coll., on the Execution of the Punishment of the Deprivation of Liberty (zákon o výkonu trestu odnětí svobody)Detainees do not have the right to visit healthcare facilities of their own choosing.

NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM RECOMMENDATIONS

Year Recommendation Report
2015The NPM recommended to reform the system by which healthcare services are provided in prisons. They pointed to problems in the present system relating to the availability and quality of care, which is connected with the lack of physicians willing to work in prisons. In the view of the Public Defender the concept of prison healthcare needs to be reviewed. Report details
2016The NPM recommended that an analysis be made of the possibilities for providing healthcare services in the facilities of the Prison Service of the Czech Republic, with a view to transferring the duty to ensure the provision of healthcare services for prisoners from the Prison Service of the Czech Republic to civil healthcare services by the end of 2016, ensuring that no information about the health status of prisoners who request access to a health practitioner be filed in the books where prisoners requesting to see a doctor are listed, that by the end of 2016 an analysis be made of the structural and technical conditions and the material equipment of all the specialised departments in prisons that are intended to lodge prisoners with disabled prisoners, prisoners with health difficulties, that the conditions surrounding the execution of punishment by prisoners with health difficulties be brought into line with the law and jurisprudence of the ECHR, not placing prisoners with mobility problems in Karviná Prison, ensuring that prisoners whose health requires it have access to rehabilitation care, ensuring that persons with health limitations receive adequate medical (compensation) aids. Report details
2017It is necessary to modify the Healthcare Services Act and direct police officers and members of the Prison Service of the Czech Republic to respect the rule that their presence during a physical examination is only possible at the physician’s request, and in that case only for monitoring purposes. Report details
2017The police should ensure that the physician’s prescription for medication is sufficiently specific, i.e. that it specifies which medicine is to be dispensed by the Police, when, and in what dosage, ensure the physician’s prescription of the medication is sufficiently specific, i.e. specify which medicine, when and in what dosage should be dispensed to the detainee, let the detainees keep their glasses while in their cell. Glasses may only be removed on the grounds of individually determined ‘special’ reasons. These reasons must be recorded in the information system. Report details
2018It is necessary to modify the Healthcare Services Act and direct police officers and members of the Prison Service of the Czech Republic to respect the rule that their presence in treatment is only possible on the physician’s request, and, in that case, only “in sight." Report details
2022The health care in Czech prisons is provided directly by the Prison Service, which employs the medical staff. Although European practice varies, an increasing number of countries are transferring prison health care from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Health. The CPT Committee has repeatedly recommended this to the Czech Republic in its reports (e.g. for reasons of independence and harmonisation of standards of care). Following the CPT Committee's visit in 2018, the Ministry of Justice started to take action on this matter. As a result of these activities, an analysis of the systemic design of prison health care was completed in early 2021. This analysis outlined options for what transformation could look like and the pros and cons of each option. The analysis worked with several versions, but all of them envisaged that the prison health system would remain under the Ministry of Justice, which would continue to decide on the authorisation to provide health services, and that the Prison Service would be obliged to provide health services to prisoners. [...] I would like to reiterate that since 2016, the Ombudsman has been supporting the idea of linking prison and civil health care as closely as possible, as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the CPT. Report details