A one-day working group meeting was held on 1 March 2016 in Yerevan with the aim to finalize the draft Concept Paper on the necessary legislative changes in the field of health care in prisons in Armenia, as well as to coordinate it with the amendments proposed under the legislative component of the project. The meeting was attended by Deputy Minister of Justice, two international and three local the Council of Europe consultants, members of the working group on the legislative component of the project, and representatives of civil society.

The Working group mainly focused on the situational analysis of prison healthcare in Armenia, while presenting recommendations of the legislative amendments included in the Concept Paper on issues such as patients’ rights, licensing, and supervision of healthcare services in prisons, and peculiarities of the provision of healthcare services to vulnerable prison population, medical documentation and collection of medical data for statistics. Additionally, the participants discussed the judicial mechanisms for protection of imprisoned patients’ rights in early conditional release, medical documentation of injuries, and other proceedings. In parallel, the international principles and the Council of Europe standards on prison healthcare services, as well as the legislation and practice from six countries were presented by the international consultants.

The working group meeting was organized within the framework of PCF project “Strengthening Healthcare and Human Rights Protection in Prisons in Armenia”, funded by the European Union and implemented by the Council of Europe.