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 Training for prison staff on screening and risk and needs assessment of suicide and self-harm behaviour in penitentiary institutions in Armenia

@ Council of Europe

Employees of the Prison Medicine Centre subunits, prison psychologists, and officers from the Security Unit of the penitentiary institutions enhanced their knowledge on the suicide and self-harm prevention in line with the Council of Europe standards, including initial screening and in-depth assessment, as well as the role of professionals involved in the assessment. The programme included practical exercises, interactive interviews and the presentation of the official roadmap with specific timeline for the piloting and sequence of steps.

The training will be followed by a piloting of the said tools in three penitentiary institutions in September 2021 with the aim to test and validate the Toolkit for Screening and Risk and Need Assessment of Suicide and Self-harm Behaviour in Penitentiary System in Armenia.

The training for 17 participants from the Prison Medicine Centre subunits, prison psychologists and officers from the Security Unit of the penitentiary institutions took place in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia from 23 to 26 August 2021, and it was organised within the framework of the project “Enhancing health care and human rights protection in prisons in Armenia” implemented by the Council of Europe and financed by the Action Plan for Armenia 2019 -2022.

Armenia 27 August 2021