Enhancing Health care and Human Rights protection in prisons in Armenia

This 30-months project is part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Armenia 2019-2022. It is implemented by the Council of Europe in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health and the Penitentiary Medicine Center.

The aim of the project is to further support the national authorities in reforming healthcare provision and human rights for sentenced persons in Armenia in line with the European standards.

Attention will be given to the following three areas:

enhancing regulatory and operational framework for provision of in line with European standards;
improvement of the material conditions and the provision of healthcare in prisons;
capacity building of the Penitentiary Medicine Centre (PMC).

The project will particularly focus on the improvement of prison healthcare services through introduction of new technologies in healthcare services, such as telemedicine and electronic database system of medical records, ensuring protection of healthcare rights of mentally-ill persons in penitentiary institutions, improvement of preventive healthcare, particularly sanitary-epidemiological and hygienic conditions and control mechanism, modernizing hospital/specialized medical care and services in the penitentiary institutions. Project activities should significantly contribute to improving effectiveness, transparency and accountability of penitentiary prison healthcare in general and the PMC in particular. Proper documentation and reporting on indications of torture, ill-treatment, inhumane and degrading treatment will stay in focus and addressed.

The amount devoted to this project is 750,000 Euros and its implementation started in November 2019 to end in December 2022.

Project documentation

Useful information

PROJECT NEWS

Back The first Working Group meeting on introduction of telemedicine in the Penitentiary system in Armenia

@ Council of Europe

Representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Prison Medicine Centre SNCO of the Republic of Armenia, Council of Europe national and international consultants participated in the first online working group meeting on 15 March 2021 to discuss and decide on the requirements for piloting telemedicine in penitentiary facilities.

The participants agreed on the course of actions for the introduction of pilot services through the telemedicine in the prison healthcare system and the timeline for its implementation, namely: the scope of the piloting, its stages, the role of stakeholders involved, the requirements to the electronic platform, and a possible adjustment to the legal framework. The importance of ensuring the security of personal data, as well as an informed consent of a patient before initiating the telemedicine consultation were specifically raised during this meeting and the participants agreed to carefully consider these matters during the implementation of the pilot..

The meeting was organised within the framework of the project “Enhancing health care and human rights protection in prisons in Armenia” implemented by the Council of Europa and financed by the Action Plan for Armenia 2019 -2022.

Armenia 16 March 2021