MOH should revisit provision of healthcare system in prisons

KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Health (MOH) should revisit the provision of healthcare system in prisons, including bringing back in-house healthcare services to the prisons, as there is an urgent need to recognise the contribution of this healthcare system.
Dean of Universiti Malaya's Faculty of Medicine, Prof Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman said although the ministry had seconded medical officers to all the major prisons in the country, there were still a lot of areas that could be improved, especially drugs procurement and diagnostic equipment such as x-ray machines.
"In terms of drugs procurement, the expertise lies with the MOH to buy drugs for the treatment of HIV, TB, drug addiction and on top of that, training of the medical doctors to familiarise them with issues related to mental health and infectious diseases.
"More importantly, a dedicated prison healthcare system or a related career path should be established so that doctors working in the prisons know there's a future for them, and for them to have passion and commitment towards the issues," she told reporters after the conclusion of the first session of the roundtable meeting on 'HIV and Related Infections in Prisoners', here, today.
The one-day meeting, organised by Universiti Malaya and Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), aimed to explore the range of possibilities to improve healthcare service access for people who use drugs at three distinct periods, namely pre-incarceration, incarceration and immediate post-incarceration.
Dr Adeeba said that undermining the provision of prison healthcare system would lead to treatment interruptions for prisoners, which would affect the health of former prisoners upon their release.
She said while there was a lack of expertise among medical officers in the prison healthcare system, she agreed that ideally, prison healthcare should be another career path for medical officers to get into.
The dean, however, stressed that what was more important was to reduce the number of people in the prisons because a large majority of them did not have to be in prison to begin with.
According to her, 40-60% of prisoners in Malaysia were in prison for the possession of drugs for personal use instead of violent crimes or drug trafficking, adding that putting them in prison was not the answer.
"We are burdening our healthcare system and prison system, and besides not being cost effective, putting a large number of people in prison would do more harm than good," she said.
Earlier at the meeting, the Lancet Special Series on HIV and Related Infections in Prisoners was launched. It highlights significant impacts of drug policy and associated incarceration on health and rights of people who use drugs around the world. — Bernama